


how do you keep a wave upon the sand?

by everdeen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Sound of Music Fusion, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Military Backstory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Which Thankfully Resolves, another Mariam Romantic Comedy™ which starts off funny and gets Way Too Deep, eventually, yes this is Exactly What You Think It Is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 65,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everdeen/pseuds/everdeen
Summary: The slightly bizarre, not exactly normal tale of how Emma was a nun, then she wasn't a nun, then she was a nanny for the seven adopted children of a super hot, super scary ex-Air Force Captain, and then she did the most stupid thing possible, which was fall in love with her.





	1. a captain with seven children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeesometime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesometime/gifts).



> here we go! a couple of quick notes:  
> 1\. this was written for the amazing sqsupernova and the art for it is done by the even more amazing evie (coffeesometime). find it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8798788).  
> 2\. obviously this is based off the sound of music, though that base becomes looser as we go along. however, it does mean that regina is in a relationship with another lady (maleficent) for parts of this - apologies. hopefully there's enough emma/regina to tide you over anyway, though.  
> 3\. there is a LOT of discussion of ptsd and panic attacks throughout this fic so i thought i'd warn you in advance. i have tried to be as accurate as possible in all cases.  
> 4\. henry is not related to emma in any way in this universe.  
> 5\. there's no singing. please don't worry. 
> 
> i have many thank yous for this fic so i left them all at the end of the final chapter, if you manage to make it that far. i do hope you enjoy it.

_‘Finally, in a low whisper, he said, “I think I might be a terrible person.” For a split second I believed him - I thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. Then I realised that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before asking someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.’_

Miranda July, _The First Bad Man_

* * *

  
**PART I: A CAPTAIN WITH SEVEN CHILDREN**

**EMMA IS** late for mass.

Horrifically, embarrassingly late, and when she finally gets back Mother Abbess is going to take her time just giving her The Look, the one that says _I’m not angry and neither is God, because we both love you, but would it be terrible to be just a little bit less of a disaster?_ And then Sister Reul will insist that Emma isn’t meant to be a nun, and Sister Aurora will argue in her favour, and all Emma will be able to do is slip slowly into the background whilst the whole squabble takes place. Emma knows this because she is always late for mass. In fact, she’s come to realise that it’s easier to count the times she _hasn’t_ been late for mass.

But all it is, really, is - it’s not as though she hates the convent, or really wants to _leave_ \- not permanently, anyway - she just goes outside and it’s all _there_. Trees, light, grass, sky - sky so big and wide and open, and just looking up into it makes her dizzy and feels like a prayer in itself - and Emma can never bring herself to leave - not on time, anyway. There’s just too _much_ , all at once, and she’s trying so hard to take it all in that by the time she’s made a start she can already hear the bells and the singing wafting up the hills.

It’s a habit she can’t get out of, and she certainly won’t start breaking it today. Even so, she lingers only a few more minutes before beginning a quick descent back, sighing as she tries to block her ears to the church bell that rings brightly, as though chiding her. By the time she’s run back to the convent and skidded inside in as dignified a manner as she can manage, Emma is walking directly into a heated conversation between Sisters Reul and Aurora, as expected, which the Reverend Mother seems to be mediating.

“It’s _ridiculous_ ,” Reul spits, the venom in her eyes only taking on a more definitive form as she spots Emma standing in the doorway. “This is a _convent_ , Mother, not a _nursery_. Emma is a problem that no one seems to be concerned with trying to solve!”

“Sister Blue,” Mother Abbess says in that light way of hers, using Reul’s nickname in a rather transparent attempt to calm her. “Let’s not refer to those in God’s care as _problems_.”

“Well, I don’t know how _else_ you’d describe her,” Blue snaps, eyes darting once again to Emma, who is undergoing a painstaking process of keeping from punching her in the face. “I’m still not sure why she’s even _here_.”

“Because she loves God!” Aurora butts in, glancing nervously between the three of them but still insistent on defending Emma. “You can’t seriously be doubting that!”

Blue looks very much like she is indeed doubting just that, and a long silence stretches between all four of them, tense and uncomfortable. Eventually, Mother Mary Margaret clears her throat.

“Sisters,” she says, addressing Blue and Aurora. “I’m sure you both have things to do. Thank you for…communicating your concerns to me. I assure you they have not gone unheard.”

They both make their exits swiftly at her sharp look, and Emma’s just about sneak after them, praying to God thousands of times over that He’ll at least let her get out of this one unscathed, when she’s stopped by Mother’s voice drifting across the courtyard.

“Emma,” it says. Soft and calm and just slightly tinged with disappointment. Like The Look, The Voice has been refined very thoroughly over the years, and Emma knows it well.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out, trying to get the necessities out of the way as soon as she can. “I’m honestly sorry, Mother - I just -”

“You just?” Mother arches an eyebrow. It makes Emma’s stomach turn slightly in fear.

“I was outside,” Emma mumbles. “And I lost track of time.”

The Reverend Mother lets out a sigh and walks over to Emma as she does so, stopping directly in front of her. “Why am I not surprised?” she murmurs as she reaches up to adjust Emma’s habit.

“I don’t - I don’t _try_ to miss things,” Emma protests, fighting her instinct to flinch away from Mother’s constantly adjusting hands.

“I know you don’t, Emma,” she says, pursing her lips.

“ _Sister_ Emma,” Emma insists. She hates when the other nuns avoid calling her sister, as though she isn’t even one of them. As though no matter how hard she tries, she can’t be a part of some thing.

“Sister Emma,” the Reverend Mother corrects with a quiet smile. “But don’t you think Blue may have a point?”

“Blue hates me,” Emma says with a scowl. “And she always makes me kiss the floor after we argue. I’ve started kissing the floor when I see her coming just to save time.”

“And yet she does have a tendency to state fact, once in a while,” Reverend Mother says. “You needn’t be quite so callous when speaking about Blue. She’s your Mistress of Novices and you know you need to respect her if you’re to move forward in the abbey.”

“Aurora’s my Mistress of Postulants and isn’t a complete -”

“ _Emma_.”

Emma sighs and rubs at her forehead. “Look, Mother, I know I was late this one time, but -”

“It’s not about that,” Mother interrupts.

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about…” she trails off and frowns. “I think perhaps we should discuss this in my office later on in the week.”

Fear grips Emma suddenly, an iron fist clamping unforgivingly around her gut. “Discuss _what_?” There’s a brief pause, then she ventures shakily, “You’re not going to kick me out, are you?”

“No.” Reverend Mother says slowly, though her face is a little absent, as though she’s thinking of something in the distant future or past. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Okay,” Emma says, searching her face for any hint of insincerity and finding none. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Mary Margaret says with a smile. “We’ll talk later. Go catch up on your prayers.”

“Yes, Reverend Mother.” Emma’s already halfway out of the courtyard when Reverend Mother’s voice stops her again.

“Oh, and Emma? Sister Emma?”

“Yes, Reverend Mother?”

“Go and apologise to Sister Blue, please. If you have to kiss the floor in advance, so be it.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Understood,” she calls back as she leaves. She goes to find Blue, eventually. The Reverend Mother always knows when Emma doesn’t do something she asks her to.

 

The Reverend Mother’s office is almost unbearably warm, and definitely unbearably tidy. Emma is hard pressed to identify one speck of dust on the desk in front of her, and all correspondence is neatly sorted into piles laden down by paperweights. There’s one photo frame on the desk, but it's turned away from her and she can't see what's inside it.

“Emma…”

“I know,” she cuts in, largely unwilling to hear the Reverend Mother’s same old speech for the millionth time over. “I know. I’m -”

“Do you know, though?” she interrupts, arching an eyebrow. “I haven't finished.”

Emma feels her cheeks colour slightly. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “Go ahead.”

There's a moment, before the Reverend Mother sighs again. “Emma,” she says. “I think it's time you leave us.”

Something cold settles uncomfortably over Emma, like ice water trickling down her back. She recognises it vaguely as dread. “ _What_?” she sputters. “No!”

“Not permanently,” she says in what’s probably meant to be a tone of reassurance. “Not if you decide to come back. It just - occurred to me that you perhaps haven't seen as much of the world as you should before deciding to join us here.”

“But I _know_ I want to join you here,” Emma protests. “I’ve always known. Am I - what, am I lacking in faith or something?”

“Not at all,” she replies in that soothing way that works on Blue and Aurora but only ever serves to infuriate Emma further. “But not being a nun doesn’t make you less faithful in God.”

“But - I haven’t even finished my postulancy yet,” she says, painfully aware of how she sounds like a whiny child.

“Exactly,” the Reverend Mother says, folding her hands in front of her. Emma has come to recognise this gesture as one of absolute authority. It tells her when the argument is already lost. “You have plenty of time to decide, Emma. You’re young.”

“So is, like, everyone here!”

“Emma,” Reverend Mother sighs, looking out the window. “I - what I want from you, and indeed what I think God wants from you, is...to be the best version of yourself that you can be. And just because we took you in doesn’t mean that you have to -”

“You took me in!” Emma exclaims, standing up suddenly. “Exactly! You took me in. When - when I _needed_ it. You gave me This is my _home_. You can’t...you can’t just make me _leave_.”

“Think of yourself as…” Mary Margaret trails off. “A duckling, perhaps. Or any bird, really. They all leave home eventually, don’t they?”

“ _Mother_ -”

“Emma,” she says. “Try it. Try. Our doors are always open for your return, you know that.”

She knows it, of course she does, but there are very few things that terrify Emma, wrack her bones with discomfort, and the thought of _leaving_ , of stepping out into a place that isn’t the abbey with its cool stone walls and the singing that’s always somewhere in the distance, just out of reach, is one of them. She doesn’t want to try. She wants to stay.

“Okay,” she manages to let out, refusing to look the Reverend Mother in the eye.

“Good,” she says, reaching for one of the papers on her desk. “I’ve found you a placement as a governess.”

Emma’s nose wrinkles. “A _governess_. You mean a nanny?”

She’s given a sharp look in response. “Captain Mills requires a governess. That is how it was phrased. So I mean a governess.”

“ _Captain_ Mills?”

“Decorated war hero, very well-known around these parts,” the Reverend Mother explains whilst rooting around for a pen and paper and starting to scribble as she talks. “Seven children.”

“ _Seven_?”

“Adopted.”

“But still, I mean, _seven_ , holy -”

“Language,” Mary Margaret sings, finishing her sentence and looking up with a piercing gaze. “As I understand, there has been difficulty in the household with finding a governess that is...permanent. Here.” She holds out some papers for Emma to take. “These are the requirements that the Captain has insisted on.”

“Okay,” Emma says slowly as her eyes scan down the apparently very detailed conditions.

“Don’t look so intimidated, you’re capable of everything that’s there.”

“Still. This Captain Mills, he drives a hard bargain.”

“She,” the Reverend Mother says, eyes gleaming. Emma blinks in surprise. “She drives a hard bargain.”

“Oh,” says Emma.

“Quite,” says Reverend Mother. “I’ll write to her and let her know of your arrival as soon as possible.”

Emma feels her stomach sink abruptly once more at the reminder of leaving. She feels twenty-three years old again, tired and scared and shivering from the rain and so, so cold, standing on the cold grey road from outside the black iron gates of the abbey. “Right,” she says, voice coming out far smaller than she’d meant it to. The Reverend Mother looks up at her at once with concern.

“Oh, Emma,” she says, and it’s not the soothing voice or The Voice or anything really except gentle enough that Emma doesn’t know whether to run away or break down crying. The Reverend Mother makes the decision for her though, stands up and moves around her desk and grabs her unceremoniously to her chest. Emma feels her warmth and smells her familiar perfume and realises with distant horror that her shoulders are shaking with tears.

“Ssh,” Reverend Mother says, rubbing her back. It's a terrifying kind of comfort, the one that never comes without the certainty, deep in Emma’s chest, that it will be pulled out from under her when she least expects it. “Emma, sweetheart…”

“I’m sorry,” she says, pulling away with a sob-heavy gasp, wiping brusquely at her eyes as she does so. “I don't - I’m being stupid -”

“Not at all.” Mary Margaret is giving her a soft look that could shatter Emma into pieces at any moment. She has to leave the office, she realises, as soon as possible.

“I should -” the words come out shaky, and Emma’s embarrassment only intensifies. “I should go. I’ll…start packing.”

Emma has nothing to pack. The Reverend Mother knows this.

“Alright,” she says anyway. “Be ready to leave tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes, Reverend Mother,” Emma says quietly. She backs away, running only when she's far enough away not to be seen. The abbey gate is easy to open when you know how, and Emma does know how; she slips outside into the cool night.

The hills are different when the moon is out, quieter and somehow more complicit in Emma’s escape. She buries herself in the grass, lies on her back and breathes, late September wind whipping at her skin. She likes the stars here because you can't always seem them straight away; sometimes they're only visible when she stares at the sky until her eyes ache. Emma tries to count the constellations she can recognise; Scorpius, Lupus, Sagittarius. It's a welcome distraction from the increasingly heavy weight that seems to be taking over her lungs, the feeling of being left, given back, not quite good enough. It's too familiar to elicit much of a reaction from her except for a sadness so deep and firmly rooted within her that she barely registers it any more.

Emma has never managed to fish out the North Star from the collection she notes whenever she’s out at this time of night, knows that she's probably seen it about a thousand times without even recognising it, but not for the first time, she wonders how it would feel, if stars could feel - and if it would feel a little bit like she does, sometimes. All the photos make it seem pretty solitary. Maybe it is. Maybe it likes it that way. Emma does, most of the time, but it's not like she has anything to compare the feeling to.

 

Emma's duffel bag is light; firstly because, in any case, she learnt a long time ago that that’s the best way for it to be, and secondly because she has nothing to pack, save the underwear that Sister Aurora had handed to her in a lump (with multiple assurances that it had all been cleaned several times, the conviction of which had only served to make her a little uncomfortable). The bus that always trundles along past the abbey at this hour does so as usual, except now Emma’s putting her hand out to stop it.

“Is this to town?” she asks. She knows it is, but she's a cautious traveller by habit, always checking and double-checking. The driver nods and she asks how much it is, wiping her hands on the starchy material of her dress. It's an awful pale yellow colour with olive green horizontal stripes, and Emma’s so sure that Blue picked it out on purpose. The woman’s always rolled more with the Old Testament vibes of the Bible.

“Two and a half dollars, sister,” he says.

“Not a sister,” Emma says, feeling her tone harden despite herself as she fishes out the money for him.

He arches a brow. “Alright. Still two and half dollars.”

She slides the coins over and takes the little pink ticket in return. The starchy thin paper reminds her of her time before the abbey; hours spent on buses getting as far away from Foster Family Number X as possible, near empty backpack and pockets laden with spare change. She's running to a family, now, she realises - a Captain Mills with seven children who live in Storybrooke, on the other side of Maine, and who for some reason can't hold down a nanny for long enough.

It's another bus to Storybrooke when she gets into town, and this second drive is long enough for Emma to exhaust every single possibility of her new life. Her mind roves over each detail; the town, how big it is, whether she'll make friends easily; the house, how big _that_ is, what her room will be like; the children, whether they'll be a load of trouble or some will be better than others, whether she'll deal badly enough with them that they'll turn her into a variation of Foster Mothers Seven (indifferent), Four (angry), or Nine (tired). And Captain Mills. Emma wonders what wars she's a veteran of, if she talks about them all the time or not at all, whether she'll be a bitch or kind or both or neither, what on earth possessed her to adopt seven kids. By the time they drive past the green sign that reads _Welcome to Storybrooke_ and Emma is disembarking, her head buzzes with ideas and theories and hopes and fears. She stands on the sidewalk and watches the bus drive away, fighting the overwhelming urge to chase after it and try to climb back on. Instead, she looks for passers by, happening across only one, a man with too-big glasses who reminds her inexplicably of an insect.

“Excuse me,” she says, stepping into his path and noticing for the first time that he has a dog with him, an apparently excitable Dalmatian who barks at her immediately. “Do you know how I can get to -”

Emma is cut off by another bark from the dog, who she realises is trying to be friendly. “Pongo,” the man scolds, tugging at the dog’s leash and giving Emma an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he says. “He likes new people.”

“That's okay, so do I,” she replies with an easy grin. “Do you know how I can get to -” she pauses to glance at the crumpled piece of paper bearing the address despite knowing it off by heart already, “108 Mifflin Street?”

The man’s face brightens slightly with understanding, and his mouth quirks up into a smile. “Ah. The new ‘governess’, I presume?”

“Nanny, governess,” Emma says with a shrug. “Whatever they’re calling them nowadays.”

“I've always thought governess is a bit antiquated,” the man replies. “But I think the Captain prefers the implied authority of the title.”

“Right,” she says, a little dubiously.

“Anyway,” he says. “It's just down this road, then two lefts and a right. The Captain’s house is the biggest one on the block, you can't miss it.”

“Not far, then,” she says. “Cool.”

“Nothing's very far in Storybrooke,” he informs her.

“Oh, yeah. Small town perks, huh?”

“That's one way to look at it,” he says with a chuckle.

Emma holds out her hand. “Emma Swan,” she says.

“A pleasure,” he replies, shaking it. “I’m Archie Hopper.” From beside him, the dog barks once more. “And this is Pongo,” he adds.

Emma brings out a hand to scratch Pongo between the ears that the dog immediately elects to lick instead. “I should probably go,” she says, more to Pongo than to Archie.

“Of course,” he says, not seeming to mind that his conversation partner is more interested in his dog than him. “I'll see you around, Emma. And good luck.”

“Thanks,” she says automatically, before blinking and letting the words actually register. “Wait, hold on, _good luck_?” Archie and Pongo are already trotting away, leaving her with nothing but a grim sense of foreboding.

Emma’s watched enough crappy movies of varying genres to know that this is the point at which the plucky, naïve hero prepares themselves to enter a shitstorm inevitably bigger than they were expecting it to be, usually with some words murmured under the breath that will boost their own confidence.

“Ah, shit,” is what she elects to mutter, then she shoulders her bag and heads for Mifflin Street.

 

The Mills household is absolutely huge, all white brick and perfectly pristine lawn arrangements that give Emma the creeps. She stops short at the gate, scuffs her foot slightly on the ground, then takes a deep breath and practically sprints through the front garden towards the door, lunging for the doorbell. It makes a huge, grand sound to announce her arrival, enough to make her heart thump loudly in her ears. The door swings open to reveal a rather elderly woman with a ramrod straight back, wiping her hands on an apron. Emma blinks in surprise.

“Captain Mills...?” she ventures, her brain already compiling several expectation versus reality montages. The woman has the posture for the military, she guesses. She just wasn't expecting the...wrinkles.

“You must be the governess,” she says shortly, pronouncing the word _governess_ as though it's leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

“That's me,” Emma says nervously, attempting to imbue her tone with some optimism and thrusting her hand out. “Emma Swan.”

“Mrs. Lucas,” the woman says, eyeing Emma’s hand with distaste but eventually grasping it with her own. Emma tries not to wince at the force of the grip. “I’m the housekeeper.”

“Oh,” she says, before smiling a little wider. “Not Captain Mills, then.”

“No,” Mrs. Lucas says shortly, clearly not finding Emma as funny as Emma finds herself, before retreating inside. She takes this as her cue to follow, and emerges into a large hallway that could probably be a house of its own. She tries to keep from gawking.

“I'll take your bag,” says Mrs. Lucas, jolting her from her thoughts.

“Oh, no, that's okay,” Emma says automatically. “Not much in here anyway.”

Mrs Lucas arches a brow. “As you wish. Your room is on the first floor. Second on the left.”

“Thank you,” Emma says.

“The Captain will be with you in a few minutes,” she answers, before promptly vanishing through a doorway that Emma swears to God wasn't there two seconds earlier. She wonders briefly if she's entered a haunted house and Captain Mills is actually a vampire, or maybe some kind of sorceress.

It doesn't take long for the wide white space of the hallway to make Emma fidgety, and she turns her gaze to the photographs that take it up, frame after frame filled with children laughing and playing and smiling. She’s just gravitating towards one of two young boys with their arms around each other and grinning widely at the camera, her fingers brushing the frame, when the click of shoes against marble causes her to whirl around with an expression she knows is extremely guilty on her face.

“Miss Swan, I presume,” says the intruder, and she knows without a doubt that this is Captain Mills, dressed in a deep blue navy pantsuit with a gleaming badge pinned to the lapel of her blazer.

“Hi,” Emma says, and immediately wishes she could slap herself.

“Hello,” Captain Mills says. Emma jerks out her hand for what feels the hundredth time today, although the action this time is far more mechanical, as though her arm is being compelled by some sort of silent command to bring itself out. Captain Mills arches an eyebrow but takes her hand anyway. Her fingers are unexpectedly warm.

“So you came from the abbey,” she comments.

“Yes,” Emma replies, unsure she can manage any more. She never got the ‘I love myself a man in uniform’ jokes when Foster Mom Number Five used to make them to her book club, but now they're beginning to click.

“Well,” Captain Mills says, completely unaware of Emma's slightly filthy internal monologue. “I should warn you we're not very religious here in the household.”

“Oh, don't worry, neither am I,” Emma says, working hard to keep the breathlessness from her tone. The Captain blinks.

“Forgive me,” she says slowly. “But I was under the impression that you were training to be a nun.”

“I am - I was,” Emma says. “I just…” she trails off momentarily, then says, “I don't believe in enforcing my faith on others.”

A long pause. “What a lovely outlook on faith you have, Miss Swan,” Captain Mills says eventually in a dry tone. She purses her lips, gives Emma a once-over that unfortunately seems entirely clinical, then says, “Do you possibly have anything a little more...appropriate to wear for meeting the children?”

Emma bristles slightly at her imperious tone. “Nope,” she says. “This is all I’ve got, sorry.”

“ _All_ you've got?”

“When we enter the abbey all our worldly possessions are given to the poor,” Emma explains.

“And what about that?” inquires Captain Mills, gesturing to the dress.

“The poor didn't want this one.”

Captain Mills’ face contorts oddly, as though she's trying to restrain herself from something. “I see. Well, we’ll have to talk to Mrs. Lucas to see about getting you some more items of clothing. You might as well meet the children in the meantime.”

“Cool,” Emma says, and she's just thinking that sure, Captain Mills is kind of scary but mostly just in a hot, ‘I have authority and would probably spank you for being a bad girl’ way, and is otherwise pretty normal, when she does a totally not normal thing, which is bring out what looks suspiciously like a dog whistle from a pocket inside her blazer, arch her head up to the landing, and blow.

And Emma thinks, what the fuck, and that's _before_ the children come out, line up at the bannister, and start making their way down like goddamn tin soldiers, lining up in front of her and the Captain with their eyes turned up and chins held high. And then Emma thinks, what the actual fucking fuck.

“Each child has a signal,” Captain Mills says, pausing her whistling to talk to her. “Please listen carefully for them, it's how you can call them when you need them. Children, this is Miss Swan, she's your new governess. Introduce yourselves on your signal.”

And they do. Captain Mills has a signal for each child and Emma just watches slack-jawed as they step forward and introduce themselves blankly to the wall then step back again in time for the next one. The only hitch comes with the youngest kid at the end, who steps forward without saying anything then steps back again.

“That's Roland,” Captain Mills says with an almost indiscernible hint of fondness. “He's a man of few words. Now.” She reaches into her blazer pocket and, to Emma’s horror, retrieves an identical whistle and holds it out to her. “Let's see how well you listened.”

“Uh,” Emma says articulately. She sees the eyes of the kids all shift to her.

“Miss Swan?”

“Sorry, I just…” Emma breaks off and shakes her head. “I don't think I can manage that. I can't even remember any of them and, like, I can just use their names?”

Captain Mills’ eyes glint dangerously. “Miss Swan, this is an extensive house and I will not have anyone shouting in it. Please take the whistle.”

Emma takes the whistle.

“You are the latest in a long line of governesses, Miss Swan,” Captain Mills tells her, beginning to walk up and down the line of children with hands behind her back. Emma has absolutely no trouble in imagining her as a military officer. “I trust you will have more success than the past thirteen.”

“Thirteen?” Emma echoes hoarsely.

“Indeed.” She stops and shoots Emma a look. “For some reason, they’ve all seemed to have a little difficulty...acclimatising.”

Emma wants to ask what the hell is wrong with the Mills children if they’ve managed to run thirteen previous nannies out of their house, but realises it probably wouldn’t be wise to do so in front of said children, or to pose the question in front of said children’s mother. Instead, she says, “I see,” even though she really doesn’t see at all.

“Now,” Captain Mills says. “When I want _you_ , you will hear -”

Emma’s eyes widen as she watches the Captain bring the whistle to her lips once more, and she brings out a preventative hand on instinct, though it doesn’t actually go anywhere, and ends up just awkwardly hovering away from her body.

“No! No way!” she lets out emphatically. The Captain pins her with yet another look, this one far more hostile than the last, though Emma notices that both hand and whistle are lowering back down again.

“No?” she repeats, as though daring Emma to repeat her objection. She can feel the children’s eyes on them, though they remain completely silent.

“I’m sorry, I just - I can’t actually deal with answering to a whistle, you know? It makes me feel kind of like a dog. Just, uh, just Emma is fine. I mean, do they even use whistles in the army or the navy or whatever any more?”

Emma always seems to run her mouth when she’s nervous or uncomfortable, completely losing any semblance of a filter, and it becomes apparent that she’s said something she shouldn’t have when Captain Mills’ face becomes suddenly devoid of all emotion, features like carved stone.

“Military customs no longer concern me,” she says coldly. “As I’m sure you know, I am retired.” A beat. Then, in a tone with a little more edge to it: “Tell me, Miss Swan, did you elect to leave the abbey of your own accord or did they simply find you too...difficult?”

The word _difficult_ always manages to hit a sore spot with Emma, serves to make her feel as though she’s twelve, fourteen, fifteen all over again, given back to another group home by a family that couldn’t be bothered to try. “I’m not really sure what difference it makes,” she replies, jaw clenching.

“Mm. I think we’re done here. The children or Mrs. Lucas will be happy to clarify anything further, I’m sure.”

She turns on her heel and begins to exit, and Emma feels a sudden, wild frustration at being dismissed so callously. Without thinking, she brings the whistle given to her to her lips and blows hard, allowing it to emit a screeching noise that echoes around the hallway. Captain Mills stops short, but otherwise doesn’t move.

“Sorry,” Emma says in a tone that implies she’s anything but. “I just don’t know _your_ signal.”

At this, she does turn around, fixing Emma with a glare that’s already familiar. “You may call me Captain,” she says shortly, before turning back around and making a swift exit. In the distance, a door slams; she jolts slightly, but soon turns back to the children, who don’t seem to have moved an inch since their initial entrance. There’s a long stretch of silence.

“Okay, now that that’s over with,” she tries to say in as upbeat a tone as possible. “Do you think we could go through your names again without the -” she waves the whistle around a little. “And maybe your ages? And, like, I dunno, a fun fact or something?”

“They make us do that on the first day of school every year,” observes one of them, a freckled girl with carefully braided red hair.

“Uh, yeah, I guess it’s a pretty universal icebreaker -”

“Kind of a crappy one, though,” another one of the girls says, crossing her arms and assuming what Emma immediately recognises to be a combative stance. She winces.

“True,” she admits, recognising that engaging in any sort of argument is not going to be particularly productive. “But it’s all I got?”

There’s a pregnant pause, before the girl at the very far end of the line, who’s clearly the oldest of all of them, lets out a sigh. “Fine, if we’re doing this,” she says. “I’m Ruby, I’m seventeen. My fun fact is that I don’t need a nanny.”

“That’s fair,” Emma concedes. The apathy in Ruby’s expression seems to be more of an act than anything; she reckons a couple of well-meaning comments here and there will break it down in no time. “We can just be friends, then, though you kinda seem way too cool for me.”

Ruby’s lips curve up, just a little, before she contains the expression in an indifferent stare that is a perfect replica of her mother’s. _Bingo_ , Emma thinks, before turning to the girl standing next to her with white-blonde hair.

“Elsa,” she says, not particularly loud but each syllable still well-articulated. “Fifteen. I don’t need a nanny either.”

“Okay, is this gonna be everyone’s fun fact?” Emma asks, spreading out her hands in a _are you for real?_ sort of gesture. “‘Cause I gotta say, I’m not sure it’s giving me much of a ‘welcome to our home’ vibe.”

“You are welcome in our home,” the ginger kid blurts out. “You’re funny and you don’t get scared when Mom’s being scary.” When Emma turns to look at her, she adds: “I’m Anna. I’m six and a half.”

“Halves are important,” Emma says with a nod and grin. “Who’s next?”

They cycle through the rest of the introductions pretty speedily; there’s Roland, four years old and possibly the cutest kid Emma’s ever seen, Mulan, who looks like she could probably kick her ass even though she’s, like, thirteen, Belle, who’s almost ten and clearly more interested in her books than any of the goings-on, and Henry, the only other boy apart from Roland. He’s only a few months younger than Mulan, for some reason reminds Emma more of Captain Mills than the others, and observes her carefully, as though he’s going to take notes on her later.

“Okay, cool,” Emma says when they’re done, scratching the back of her calf with her other foot in slight discomfort as she tries to cope with the weight of seven expectant gazes at once. “Any, uh, top tips for getting started?”

“With what? Getting with our mom?” inquires Elsa acerbically. Emma’s eyes widen.

“Wait, _what_? No! Why would you even think - I literally just met - I meant, like, in general! I’ve - I mean, I’ve never done this sort of nanny thing before, so…”

“Sure,” Ruby says. “To start off, only call Mom Regina. Don’t bother with all that Captain sh - stuff. Show her you can think for yourself.”

“Wait, seriously?” Emma asks, frowning. Captain Mills had seemed pretty serious about being called Captain Mills. Also, Regina, she thinks. Nice name.

“Yep,” Elsa says, popping the ‘p’. “Always sit at the head of the table. We don’t believe in traditional power structures here.”

The realisation that she’s been mocked dawns slowly on Emma, and she struggles to keep the hurt look from her face. “I really -”

“Don’t even make your bed in the morning,” Anna chirps, a little evilly. “Mrs. Lucas will do it.”

“Okay,” Emma sighs, running a hand through her hair. “Just because I said I haven’t done this before doesn’t make me a total idiot.”

Elsa shrugs unapologetically. “Worth a try. Jones believed it.”

“Jones?”

“Nanny number nine,” Ruby says.

“And that went down really well, did it?”

“Let’s say he didn’t last particularly long,” she says with a wicked grin that’s actually kind of terrifying.

“Okay,” Emma says again, suddenly feeling extremely tired. “Cool. You know, I should probably head to my room and unpack and...stuff.”

“Dinner’s at eight,” Mulan tells her. At Emma’s look, she adds, “Seriously, it is.”

“Right. Thanks.” She reaches for her duffel, which oddly seems a little heavier than before, then makes her way upstairs, trying to remember as she goes if Mrs. Lucas the housekeeper said her room was the second or the third on the left and dimly aware of the way the children have immediately erupted into a flurry of whispers upon her departure. She rolls her eyes. Kids.

When Emma eventually finds her room, she’s pleasantly surprised; it’s spacious but homey at the same time, with a large window that extends the length of one of her walls, and a bathroom of its own, a privilege she doesn’t think she’s ever been extended in her life. The only drawback are the curtains, which are about as ugly as the dress she’s wearing (maybe worse) and don’t seem to really fit in with the pristine decor of the house she’s seen so far. But beggars can’t be choosers, she guesses, and she’s not about to complain.

She sets her duffel on the bed and unzips it, only to have to muffle a loud yelp of surprise. There, nestled amongst the horrifically outdated and oversized panties from the abbey, is a frog, still dripping with pond water. Further inspection shows her that, in fact, her entire bag is filled with pond water, and she scowls, remembering the way Roland had been weirdly close to it during their conversation downstairs. Always the cute ones.

“Fucking kids,” she mutters, heaving her bag to the bathroom. She figures she might have to dispose of it permanently.

 

Dinner goes like this: all the children file in one by one (weird) and take seats that are obviously set. The Captain comes in from another door with, surprisingly, various pots and pans, going back and forth between the dining room and what Emma guesses is the kitchen to set them, before sitting down herself. Emma is possibly maybe kind of staring at her, which is why when she sits down in the only seat that's left she suddenly feels like she’s been stabbed directly in the ass.

“Ow! Holy _fu_ -” she springs up again, just managing to keep from swearing, and glances at the seat, which bears three singular roses, all bearing extremely sharp thorns. Well played, she thinks grimly. Well played.

“Is there a problem, Miss Swan?” inquires the captain caustically from the other end of the table.

“Nope,” Emma replies through gritted teeth, removing the roses gingerly and sitting down. The flowers are a deep red, and she knows the mark of a prankster when she sees one, so she glares surreptitiously at Ruby, who maintains a perfectly serene expression on her face. “No problem.”

“Right, well,” the Captain says, eyeing both Ruby and her, before beginning to reach for the ladle in one of the larger pots.

“Sorry, uh, Captain, do you mind if I - say something?” Emma asks before she can go any further. Captain Mills stops short and looks at her.

“Miss Swan,” she says shortly. “I understand that you've come from a...singularly religious background, but here we're really not in the habit of saying grace before a meal.”

“Oh!” Emma lets out. “No, nothing like that. I'm kind of not big on the grace thing, either.”

This earns her another look, this one tinged with confusion, no doubt at the idea of a nun-in-training not being ‘big’ on grace. She presses forward into the silence.

“I, uh, just wanted to thank the kids for the super nice gift they left me in my bag today,” Emma says, careful not to look at any of them and saying her words mostly to her plate. “I mean, I think they knew - I _know_ they knew - how nervous I was, and worried, and alone, and they really made me feel so welcome. The moment I saw what they'd left me I just felt so much better, you know?”

Now is the time to look up, Emma thinks. When she does, she's met by seven faces bearing expressions of varying degrees of regret, apology, and discomfort.

There's a long beat of silence, before Roland says very quietly, “Mama, can you put me on the naughty step?”

Captain Mills blinks in surprise. “I'm sorry?”

“I've been mean,” Roland says, voice and bottom lip both starting to quiver. “Super mean.”

He sniffs, and Emma gives it only a few seconds before the kid starts wailing. Captain Mills is clearly of the same mindset, and she observes all the children before reaching over to Roland and pulling him out of his seat and into her lap. Once there, he immediately starts to sob.

“Miss Swan,” Captain Mills says carefully as she comforts him, running a hand through his hair. “Is it to be at every meal, or merely dinner time, that you intend on leading us all through this rare and wonderful new world of...indigestion?”

Emma smiles beatifically. Belle and Anna look as close to tears as their brother. “That really depends on the children, Captain.”

More tears erupt. Captain Mills glares, and Emma only smiles wider.

 

Emma gets a good deal of free time given to her when the children are at school during the day, and it means she can be careful and deliberate in her adjustment to both the Mills household and children. The house itself is pretty big, but she only really cycles between a limited number of rooms; the children's rooms, which are all on her floor (as is a closed door at the very end that she presumes to be the Captain's, though she never really sees her going in or out of it), the dining room, and the kitchen, where Mrs. Lucas seems to spend most of her time, with a permanent frown on her face.

The kids, similarly, are easy to adjust to when Emma gets the hang of them. Ruby, Elsa and Mulan remain distant if not outright cold, but she’s confident she can get through to them with time. Roland, in comparison, is quickly becoming sort of her sidekick, with the amount of time they spend together; Anna makes for a bubbly and bright conversation partner, and Belle a far calmer one, although Emma realises only a few minutes into their first talk that her quietness serves to mask a fierce intelligence. The only one she really can't get a read on yet is Henry. He doesn't seem as hostile as his older sisters, but isn't as keen on chatting to her either. Instead, he fades into the background and watches, almost perpetually. Emma is given the strong sense that she's being sized up in some way.

A week after Emma's arrival, it storms, hard, like October is announcing itself as flamboyantly as possible. She hates thunderstorms - always has - and the kids are either asleep or in bed at the very least, so there's nothing really to distract her. She sits at the foot of the bed, knees up to her chest, and breathes, squeezes her eyes shut and wishes herself away. It's one of those nights when that doesn't work, though, and at a lack for anything else to do she gets off the bed and kneels in front of it, deciding to take a leaf out of the Reverend Mother's book.

She clears her throat. “Uh, hey God,” she says awkwardly, letting her eyes flutter shut. There's a loud rumble of thunder from outside, and she takes it as confirmation that he’s listening. "Just, you know, checking in," she continues. This is the kind of thing that Blue would have a fit at, but Blue's not here, and Emma has always been of the opinion that God is way more chilled out than they make him out to be in the abbey, if he's out there at all.

“I guess I just - I wanna know why you dropped me here. What I can do. I guess.” Emma lets out a frustrated sigh, squeezes her eyes tighter. “I just, I kinda think that these kids aren't as happy as they could be, ya know? And neither is their...neither is their Mom. So, I know that I'm only really here because I was messing with your mojo back in the abbey, but I don't know, maybe I could...I don't know. You know. Obviously, you're God. Okay, uh, that’s all, I think. Thanks for being great and giving me a lot of stuff that you don’t give other people. God bless Reverend Mother and the sisters, and Captain Mills, I guess, and her kids...Elsa, Anna, Belle, Ruby, Mulan, Roland, and...what's his name? Ah, crap.” More thunder; Emma winces. "Sorry. God bless what's-his-name."

There's a sudden creak behind her. Emma tamps down on her instinct to jolt around; instead, she inclines her head only slightly to see the intruder. It's Ruby, her scandalously tight fitting clothes completely drenched from the rain and hair dripping water onto the floor. She's trying desperately to tug Emma's window closed, to very little success. Emma smirks and turns back to the bed.

“And God bless Ruby, if I haven't said that already,” she continues, louder than before. “Help her realise that I'm just a friend who could help her. Help her be more open to that help. Help me find out what exactly she thinks she's doing trying to sneak into my window at a quarter to midnight, way, _way_ past her curfew.”

A huff sounds from behind her; Emma turns to see the girl in question, arms crossed, expression halfway between worry and annoyance. “It was the only one that was open. Don't tell Regina,” she says, the words an order but coming out more like a plea.

“Whilst I’m impressed with your resourcefulness and your ability to climb up two storeys of sheer brick wall in this weather, it's definitely gonna take more than that,” Emma replies flatly. Ruby lets out another sound of frustration.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she confirms, before glancing downwards. “Hey, you're dripping all over the carpet.”

She gets up and retrieves a towel, along with a large, oversized hoodie and some flannel pyjama bottoms, only a few of the many treasures that she'd gained from her Captain Mills-approved shopping trip a few days earlier. “Here,” she says, holding the clothes out. “Go change and then we can talk, okay?”

Ruby's mouth twists up slightly, as though she's keeping from smiling at the gesture. “Okay,” she says, then adds hesitantly: “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Emma says with sincerity, knowing a victory when she sees it, and she grins. “Sneaking out to see a guy past ten o'clock, we've all been there.”

Ruby blushes, just barely. “Not a guy,” she says briefly, before making a beeline into the bathroom.

“Oh,” Emma lets out, the word obscured by the slamming of the door. Then, she blinks. “ _Oh_.” Well, damn.

Another crash of thunder jolts Emma out of her thoughts, loud enough to make her let out a low curse and move over to tug the still open window closed. Ruby re-emerges just as she manages to win the struggle against the stubborn hinges, the hoodie nearly swallowing her up.

“I put my stuff out to dry in the bathtub, if that's okay,” she says. Emma shrugs.

“Fine by me, as long as you remember to pick it up.”

“Sure.”

There's a stretch of quiet between them punctuated only by the harsh patter of the rain on glass, both of them standing awkwardly. Eventually, Emma clears her throat, unable to stand it any longer.

“So,” she starts, trying to grin at Ruby. “Who's the lucky lady, huh?”

Ruby actually blushes, chagrined, but there's a moony sort of look in her eye that makes Emma let out a laugh as she sits down on the bed and pats the space next to her in an invitation that she takes.

“Oh, you've got it _bad_ ,” she says, now grinning properly.

“Shut up,” Ruby says from beside her, tucking her hair behind her ear, though she's smiling slightly as well. “Her name's Dorothy,” she says.

“Cute,” Emma comments. “She got a dog named Toto?”

Ruby pins her with a thoroughly unimpressed look that once again reminds Emma forcibly of Captain Mills. “You're really weird,” she says.

“Thanks,” Emma says.

“I kinda thought you'd go weird on me,” she admits.

“I thought I was weird already?”

“Weirder.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, cause, like, I'm sneaking out to do...whatever...with a...you know, a girl.”

Emma's brow furrows. “Why would I be weird about that?”

“Because you're a nun?”

Emma blinks. “Oh,” she says. “Well, I mean - it really doesn't matter to me, personally. I'm really not that big on, you know, that sort of thing.”

“The nun sort of thing?” Ruby asks, eyebrows raised with doubt.

“The judging people sort of thing,” Emma corrects, leaning back on her hands. “Also, maybe the nun sort of thing. I don't know, I'm figuring it out. I'm not a nun any more anyway.”

“That's true,” Ruby concedes.

"So tell me more about this Dorothy," Emma says with a wicked smile. “How cute is she on a scale of one to ten?”

“Okay, you're back to being weird again.”

“What? No! I'm being totally cool!”

There's another crash of thunder at this claim, as though God is either agreeing or disagreeing heartily. It's followed by a flicker of lightning that makes Emma shiver a little in discomfort. Suddenly, there's a loud knocking at the door. Emma turns and frowns at Ruby, who shrugs, before she gets up and opens it to find Anna, Belle, and Roland.

“Uh, hey guys,” she says, a little awkwardly. “What's up?”

“Roland doesn't like storms,” Anna says, though one look at her tells Emma that it's not just Roland.

“Oh, _I_ see what's going on here,” Emma says easily, narrowing her eyes playfully. “This is one of those pyjama parties I didn't get a memo for. Well,” she gives a long-suffering sigh, “I suppose if you're making me the hostess you'll have to come on in. Luckily my bed's pretty big and very, very comfy, as your sister will tell you.”

“Ruby?” Anna says upon seeing the aforementioned sister sat on Emma's bed. “Did you not like the storm too?”

“Yeah,” Ruby replies easily, eyes softening. “You know how thunder gives me the creeps.”

“Hop on!” Emma says, scooping Roland up and falling heavily back onto the bed with him, eliciting a squeal of delight. All five of them burrow underneath the covers, Roland wrapping his arms around her.“Now all we have to do,” she says, tapping him on the nose and tugging Belle closer to her, “is wait for the hardasses.”

“Elsa and Mulan aren't scared of anything,”  Belle murmurs to her.

“Is that so?”

“And neither is Henry,” Roland adds loudly.

“That's who I forgot!” Emma exclaims, slapping a hand to her forehead. “God bless Henry!”

More thunder, succeeded almost immediately by some loud knocking. Emma smirks at Ruby, who shakes her head and gets up to open the door. Sure enough, the last three children are standing in the doorway, Elsa and Mulan with their chins turned up in almost identical shows of defiance.

“We just wanted to check you were fine,” Mulan says stiffly. Elsa nods.

“How kind of you,” Emma says. From behind his sisters, Henry grins, unexpectedly. Emma decides immediately that she likes how it looks on him.

“They didn't like the lightning,” he says conspiratorially as they make their way further inside. “Also, we felt kinda left out.”

“Now it's more fun!” Anna exclaims, tugging on Elsa's hand and pulling her down to the bed. In a departure from the norm, Elsa only smiles gently at her, and allows herself to be pulled in with no complaints.

“Alright, everyone in!” Emma announces, and to her surprise they obey, even Mulan, crawling under the covers. There's a moment of stillness, and Emma's been crammed into beds with too many children tonnes of times before, had to just barely squeeze in and constantly fight to keep her section of the covers being pulled away from her, but now she can't explain the way she feels, as though she's content even with Elsa's butt on her legs and Mulan's elbow digging into her side and Roland breathing loudly in that little kid way in her ear. There's more thunder from outside, and all of them jump; both him and Anna let out a squeal.

“Why is it so loud? Why is there so much?” he asks, tugging on a lock of Emma's hair.

“Uh, I guess the thunder says something to the lightning, and the lightning says something back. They're just having a conversation.”

“Oh,” Roland says, seemingly mollified by this explanation. He snuggles deeper into her chest and Emma feels an inexplicably strong tug of fondness.

“Actually,” Henry stage-whispers to Elsa from beside them, “thunder and lightning aren't separate entities. Thunder is the sound lightning makes, it just comes slightly after it because light travels faster than sound.”

“Alright, smartass,” Emma says teasingly, slapping his arm, but she knows she's smiling really widely, because this is the first time she's actually heard Henry speak at length since she's arrived, and his body seems relaxed as he sits with them. She casts a look over to Anna and Belle, who are still sitting slightly tensely, even with one of Ruby's arms around each of them.

“Hey,” she says, moving her arm from between her body and Henry's to settle her hand on Belle’s shoulder. “You know, I hate thunderstorms too. Find them super scary.”

Anna eyes her dubiously. “You seem fine now,” she points out.

“That's ‘cause I have a special trick.”

“A trick?”

“Yeah. When I'm, like, worried, or something, I just think of things I like. Things that make me happy to think about. Like, uh, a burger with a huge side order of fries. Or hot chocolate with whipped cream.”

“So food related items, mostly,” Ruby snorts. Emma shoots her a glare that doesn't have much force.

“I like chocolate,” Anna says.

“Cool, me too,” Emma says encouragingly. “What else?”

“Books,” says Belle. “The pages smell nice when they're new.”

“When it's sunny in the woods,” comes a voice unexpectedly from behind her. Emma twists slightly to see Mulan picking studiously at the sheets. “It's nice when the light comes through the leaves,” she mumbles, not looking up.

“Yeah,” Emma agrees, realising abruptly that she's been gifted with something precious. “Anything else? Henry?”

Henry juts his bottom lip out in thought, chews on it for a moment. “I like the sea. And the nice way ink flows out of a really good pen.”

“I'll tell you what _I_ like,” Ruby says with a dangerous grin at her siblings, before grabbing a pillow from behind her and brandishing it high like a weapon. “Pillow fights!”

She wallops Anna on the head, and the action serves as an immediate call to arms for all of them, the younger girls letting out screeches of joy and Elsa and Mulan springing up to stand on the bed. Henry follows eagerly, dragging Roland up with him, and Emma is content to just watch until Ruby manages to hit her over the back of the head.

“Oh, it is _on_ ,” Emma declares, the words underscored by breathless giggles and the creak of bedsprings. Mulan grins, genuinely and brilliantly; the effect is blinding, like looking into the sun for a split second too long.

“Bring it!” she shouts, tackling Emma with a pillow of her own.

Emma does, and the free-for-all pillow fight eventually evolves into a game of Emma versus Mills kids; she's just in the middle of losing terribly, Anna and Belle and Roland all piling on top of her whilst Elsa the former ice queen tries to find her ticklish spots, when their hysterics are cut through by a singular “Henry?” from the doorway.

The children spring away from Emma immediately, as though burnt, and sit up to face Captain Mills, who is standing in the doorway wearing a smooth blue dressing gown that stops mid-thigh.

“Ruby?” she says, gaze roving all of them before halting on Emma. "Miss Swan," she says, grimly, the final name of the trio coming out in a far more accusing tone. There's a flicker in her expression as she surveys all of them heaped onto Emma's bed, something that's almost like longing.

“The, uh, the children couldn't sleep. Because of the storm,” she explains haltingly. Captain Mills’ expression is stiffening by the second, and it makes discomfort crawl hot and heavy up Emma's arms.

“And so you of course thought the best course of action would be to engage them all in rigorous...activity.” Her words are sharp, pinpointed, unflinchingly calm.

“Captain, I -”

"Ruby, sit up straight," Captain Mills snaps unexpectedly, turning her gaze on her eldest daughter. “Pillow fights, really? You're seventeen, not ten. You too, Elsa. I could've expected this from the others, not you.”

Elsa crosses her arms with barely contained resentment, predictably, but Ruby's face by contrast takes on an expression that's between penitence and a bizarre sort of sorrow. “Sorry, Mom,” she murmurs.

“Go to bed,” Captain Mills says sharply. “All of you. I won't hear of this happening again, am I understood?” Silence. “ _Am I understood_?”

A chorus of mumbled affirmation sounds, before the children steadily make their exit. Emma waits until Henry has trailed out of the door before she starts to speak.

“Captain -”

“Miss Swan,” she cuts her off coldly. “I hired you under the impression that you could contain the children, not assist in their antics, and _certainly_ not keep them up past midnight.”

“I'm sorry,” Emma says, sensing that protest will do little to help her.

“If this happens again, I won't hesitate to ask you to leave.”

“Of course,” she says. Now that the children are gone, Emma's provided with a full view of the Captain and struggles to keep her eyes from lingering, the curve of her hips and long expanse of coffee-coloured skin extending beyond the hem of the dressing gown thoroughly distracting.

“Is there something _wrong_ , Miss Swan?”

Emma's eyes snap back up guiltily to her face, and she can tell by the glint in Captain Mills' eyes that she's been caught in the act.

“No,” Emma says quickly. “Not at all. I'm - sorry for disturbing your evening. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Surprisingly, the Captain doesn't choose to berate her any further, regarding ogling or anything else. Instead, she turns to leave.

“Good night, Miss Swan,” she says. The door lets out a smooth click as it shuts, leaving Emma staring at the space where the Captain had just been, dazed.

“Fuck,” she says. There's a rumble of thunder from outside in affirmation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternative titles for this include: "o captain, my captain", "is it possible to write 'the sound of music' without any actual singing?", and "why did emma swan ever think she could be a nun?"  
> chapter title taken from 'i have confidence'.


	2. quaint and bizarre as a team are we

**PART II: QUAINT AND BIZARRE AS A TEAM ARE WE**

**WHAT EMMA LEARNS** most quickly about Captain Mills over the next month is that she’s actually rarely in the house.

“She has a lot of work and stuff,” Ruby tells her disinterestedly when Emma mentions it one day, clearly more concerned with painting her toenails. “And I don’t know, I’m not sure she really likes it here. Does this seem even to you?” She gestures towards the coat of polish on her toes.

Emma frowns. “I don’t know, I’m kinda the wrong person to ask about that,” she brushes off, absent with her thoughts. “Cycle back a minute? What does your mom actually work as? And why does - why do you say that?”

“Honestly, I kinda have no idea, just stuff that involves a lot of money and paperwork. Why do I say what?”

“Why do you say she doesn’t like it here?”

Ruby looks up briefly, thoughtful expression on her face. “I don’t mean she doesn’t like _us_ ,” she says. “Just, like, this is, was, her mom’s house or whatever.”

“Okay, so…” Emma says, still not quite putting the pieces together. Ruby rolls her eyes.

“ _So_ , Regina hates her mom’s guts. Or did. Or at least hates them a little bit. I don’t know, it’s complicated. She joined the air force to get away from her, kinda.”

“Air force,” Emma repeats. “Not navy.” Now, Ruby just looks at her like she’s a verified idiot.

“You don’t know anything about her, do you?” she says flatly.

“Hey,” Emma says, putting her hands up, defensive. “I’ve been in a convent for, like, three years.”

Ruby eyes her curiously. “Did you ever leave?”

“Obviously I _left_ ,” she scoffs. “It’s not like they locked us away, it’s not a prison. Anyway, not the point. No, I do not know anything about your mom. Why should I?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby says. “Everyone just kinda knows her story around here.”

“Not hard,” Emma points out. “Storybrooke is tiny. You wanna give me a Mills 101?”

“I guess,” the girl says with a shrug, finishing off the last nail on her right foot. “She was in the air force and deployed in Iraq, I think. She joined when she was really young because her mom was on her back all the time for her to do other stuff - go to an Ivy League school, inherit the family corporation, marry into wealth, yada yada - then she got picked for the academy and made an officer. She kinda won’t really tell me more than that.”

“Oh,” Emma says. “So she was a captain.”

“Yeah and…” Ruby’s face scrunches up in thought. “A, like, company commander? I think? I really don’t know. She seriously hates talking about it. I mean she doesn’t say that she does but her face goes all weird and her voice gets really flat. So we don’t really mention it. She retired when her mom passed and left her pretty much everything, I think. It was just her and Mulan for about half a year before she adopted Henry.”

“Her and Mulan?” Emma asks with a frown.

“Cora - that’s her mom - was Mulan’s foster mom before she died, so Regina fostered her and then adopted her,” Ruby explains, digging through a box that Emma guesses contains a variety of nail polish.

“Oh, okay,” Emma says, a little spaced out as she tries to process all the new information. “Gotcha.” She hesitates, then remembers something that’s been niggling at her for a while. “Can I ask one more question?”

“I mean, you’re on a roll,” Ruby tells her, acerbic but not entirely genuine with it, “so sure.”

“Why is there a piano in the living room?” she enquires haltingly. “I mean - I haven’t really heard anyone play it since I arrived, but it looks pretty…you know, huge and expensive, so I was wondering…”

“Oh, that,” Ruby says. “It’s Regina’s, she plays. Amazingly, actually. Or that’s what I can tell from the videos.”

“She doesn’t play when she’s home?”

“Never. Henry knows, I think, she taught him, but that piano’s never played on.”

“Why not?”

“Dunno. One of Regina’s post-war sad things. Also, Psycho Cora’s the one who made her learn when she was a little kid, so it’s probably to do with that too.”

“Right,” Emma says, thrown a little off-guard by the candid nature with which Ruby is referring to things. “Sad.”

Ruby hums in affirmation and returns to her toes. “You know, you’re the first person to actually kinda want to know about all this stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Stuff about us, when we got here, how, or whatever.” Ruby pauses, then grins a little, eyes still focused on her painting. “Stuff about Mom.”

Emma stiffens slightly, can already feel the blood begin to move to her cheeks. “It’s not stuff about your _mom_ , specifically,” she tries to say in as even a tone as possible. “I’m just interested. I live with you guys, don’t I?”

“Sure,” Ruby says lightly. “Whatever you say.”

“Ruby,” Emma says warningly.

“What?”

“Look, whatever - whatever you’re implying, stop.”

“I’m not implying anything,” Ruby says, eyes widened in apparent innocence. “ _You_ are filling all the gaps yourself.”

Emma huffs. “Shut up.”

Ruby laughs. “Oh, you are _so_ not nun material.”

Emma tenses a little. “That’s not...don’t say that,” she says.

There’s a brief pause. “Sorry,” Ruby says eventually.

“It’s okay,” Emma says, even though it isn’t, because maybe Ruby’s right. Maybe Emma so isn’t nun material. She just really, really doesn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, she says: “So where’s your mom at right now?”

“Eh, not sure,” Ruby says with a noncommittal shrug. “New York, probably. She’s _always_ there recently.”

“Oh.” Emma feels like she’s saying _oh_ a lot recently; it makes her feel very stupid.

“Yeah.” Ruby rolls her eyes. “It’s because _Mal_ ’s there.”

“Mal? Who’s Mal?”

“You’ll see,” she replies darkly. Before Emma can question further, Roland and Anna burst in, Elsa in tow.

“ _Emma_!” Anna jumps up towards her, and Emma retains just enough presence of mind to catch her by the arms and haul her up.

“Hey, trouble,” she says, trying to ruffle Anna’s hair before realising it’s braided out of the way and settling for an awkward pat instead. “What’s up?”

“It’s cold but also sunny outside and we wanna play!” Roland says in answer, tugging on Emma’s trousers to get her attention.

Elsa shifts a little uncomfortable where she stands and gives Emma an apologetic look. “Sorry. I said you’d be busy but they kinda wouldn’t listen.”

“I’m not busy,” Emma tells her with an easy grin. “What are we playing?”

“Magic!” Roland proclaims immediately. “We’re in the Enchanted Forest and you’re the Saviour and we’re trying to save Snow White from the Evil Queen!”

“Oh wow,” Emma says, getting up and casting Ruby a glance as she does so. “You’ve got this planned out, huh?”

“ _Obv_ iously,” Anna replies with no little amount of disdain. “It’s the best game.”

“Okay, let’s do it - where is this Enchanted Forest?”

“ _Every_ where!” Roland proclaims with enthusiasm, stretching out his arms as he does so.

“Usually the garden,” Elsa provides with an eye-roll. “Roland likes to take ownership of the apple tree.”

“It’s not the _apple tree_!” Roland lets out with a slight screech, leaping up to clap a hand over Elsa’s mouth but not quite making it and instead just sliding his palm over her chin, much to her displeasure. “It’s the stables! I need to go and repair Emma’s noble steed!”

With that, he runs out of the room. Anna pauses to say, “See you there!” before following suit, leaving Elsa, Emma and Ruby alone.

“I keep telling him there’s a ‘p’ at the beginning of prepare,” Elsa says awkwardly. “But it keeps coming out as as ‘repair’ instead.”

Emma laughs. “I mean, he’s pretty smart. Using some big words for a kid his age anyway.”

Elsa coughs. “Yeah,” she says. Emma bites her lip at the silence that ensues, and Ruby returns to busying herself with her nail-painting.  

“Well!” she says finally after a long beat of suitable awkwardness. “I should probably go out and find the noble steed.” She gets up and glances at Elsa. “You coming?”

“I actually have some homework I should probably finish,” Elsa says, following her out.

“Oh, shit,” Emma says. “Homework. I forgot you guys have that. Oh, _shit_.” A beat, then: “Oh, shit, I swore.”

“Several times,” Elsa says flatly in reply, though there’s a look of amusement just beginning to slip onto her face. “You do kinda need to help us with our work, yeah. Although usually we help each other.”

“Help each other?”

“I help Anna, Ruby helps Roland, Mulan helps Belle - although she never really needs help.” Elsa shrugs, something Emma is quickly coming to realise signifies some kind of discomfort.

“Well, I mean, that’s cool, although you’re doing my job for me,” Emma tries to say as jokingly as possible. Elsa looks at her carefully.

“The people who came before you weren’t always as keen to do what Regina actually paid them to do,” she says at last. There’s a guarded look to her eyes and Emma knows that she’s the kind of stupid person who’ll try desperately to do whatever she can to make it go away.

“So you adapted.”

“Yeah,” Elsa says. “What else can you do?”

They reach another hallway and Elsa starts to go in the opposite direction to her. Emma bites her lip, panics briefly, then says: “Elsa?” She waits until the girl turns around and says, a little awkwardly: “I don’t - you don’t need to feel like you have to do that. I mean, I’m here to help. You know?”

Elsa looks at her. “We’ll see,” she says, a perfect imitation of Captain Mills, then she turns on her heel and stalks away. Emma is left standing in the hallway and wondering how exactly a fourteen year-old can make her feel like a child herself.

 

“Hey, kid, you gotta slow down a little,” Emma pants halfway through the fifth lap of the garden with Roland storming ahead. Anna, by contrast, is having what looks like an extremely peaceful time making a ‘crown’ for Snow White out of a selection of leaves that she’s found on the lawn. She can’t help but feel a little jealous.

“No! The Evil Queen’s ‘hind us!” Roland cries from in front of her, leaping rather theatrically over an extremely insignificant twig. “Watch out for the big log!”

Emma obliges, taking a running jump over the twig, then pausing momentarily to catch her breath. “Maybe you should go on without me,” she says in a heaving breath.

“ _No_ , Emma!” Roland huffs, halting before backtracking to her and standing in front of her with his arms crossed moodily. “You're the _sa_ viour.”

“I know, I know, I get it,” she lets out. “But couldn’t the saviour do a bit, like, less running?”

“We’re not running,” Roland says seriously. “We’re riding on your noble steed.”

“Well, the steed and I are both tired. How about the saviour goes on a new quest?”

The kid eyes her with suspicion. “New quest where?”

“Cloud Castle,” Emma says after a moment of thought, extremely aware that she is embarking on a trail of desperate improvisation.

“Cloud Castle?” Roland repeats skeptically.

“Uh-huh,” she says, trying to imbue her tone with as much certainty as possible. “What you gotta do is - lie down -” she takes off her coat, which was already stifling since she’d spent so much time running around that she’s extremely sweaty, then lays it down and settles herself on top of it and on the grass. “And make shapes out of the clouds.”

Roland looks extremely unimpressed. “That’s boring,” he says.

“Sometimes adults gotta do boring things, kid. Especially after a long time spent doing _not_ boring things.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Emma says, arching up her head to fix him with a look.

“You’re not even an _adult_. You’re _Emma_.”

Emma lets out a huff of amusement, before realising Roland is completely serious. “Let’s make a deal,” she tries. “You can take the noble steed and carry on with the escape from the Evil Queen. I’m gonna try and make it into the Cloud Castle.”

“Fine,” Roland huffs. “But you’re not even gonna get there. Cloud Castles aren’t _real_.”

The temptation to bite out the automatic response of _neither is the Enchanted Forest_ is almost overwhelming; Emma fights it down, reminding herself that despite Roland’s convictions to the contrary she _is_ actually an adult, and places her hands under her head, staring deliberately into the sky. “Whatever you say,” she sings.

Another angry huff before Roland takes away with a loud cry of “Ride on, horsey!”, embellished with an astonishingly accurate neigh that she presumes is meant to be imitative of ‘horsey’s’ hypothetical response. Emma snorts to herself before rolling over to her side and breathing in deeply, the leaves and grass fresh on her nose. It’s that part of autumn that’s catapulting quickly into the beginnings of winter, and the sky is so blue and clear it makes Emma’s eyes hurt to look at it for too long. The cold is harsh on her face and the warmth of her scarf intoxicating in comparison. She remembers the hills behind the abbey and, for the first time since she's left, feels barely a pang of longing. She’s dimly aware of Anna humming off-key whilst she continues making her daisy chains, and an underscore of Roland making clip-clop noises of galloping as he circles the garden for what feels like the trillionth time. Emma’s just drifting off to sleep when she feels a curiously firm feeling in her chest, as though her body is confirming she’s exactly where she needs to be in that moment. It’s entirely alien and strong enough to make her hands shake a little with it, but sleep has pulled her from consciousness before she can fully consider it.

 

The next week sees Captain Mills’ return, though only temporarily, as Mrs. Lucas explains.

“New York _again_?” Emma says, trying to dip her finger into the cake mix that the Captain had left on the counter without attracting Mrs. Lucas’ attention.

“Mm,” Mrs. Lucas lets out in response, not turning around from her position cleaning the hob opposite. “She has...friends there.”

“Friends?”

“And family.” Now, Mrs. Lucas does turn around, and Emma quickly withdraws her hand as far away from the mixing bowl as she can.

“Family?” she inquires, tucking her hand behind her back and making her expression as innocent as possible in response to the suspicious look she’s being given.

“Yes,” Mrs. Lucas confirms, making a grab for the mixing bowl and moving it over. “Captain Mills has a sister.”

Emma blinks in surprise. “Really?”

“Really. I understand that the Captain plans on bringing her back with her upon her next return. The children adore Zelena, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Emma agrees absently, already wracking her brains for any mention of a Zelena in the household since her arrival. She comes up mostly empty-handed, apart from a dim recollection of Roland chattering about his trip to the beach once with his mother and his aunt.

“But, well, the beds aren’t making themselves,” Mrs. Lucas says with a huff, wiping her hands on her apron. “Are you taking the children out today?”

Emma smiles before she can stop herself. “Yeah,” she says. “I thought we could go to market, maybe. Just have a walk and stuff.”

“Lovely,” Mrs. Lucas says, in a tone that implies utter disinterest. “Remember to mention it to the Captain before you go.”

“Oh, sure,” Emma agrees, checking her watch. “Hey, I should probably do that now and get them ready if we’re gonna be back for lunch.”

“Probably.”

She smiles at Mrs. Lucas a little nervously. The housekeeper’s attitude has thawed significantly since Emma’s initial arrival, but still sets her a little on edge, as though she’s walking on eggshells. “Excuse me,” says Emma, before making a quick exit.

She has no idea if Captain Mills is even home right now, but the chances are that if she is she’ll be in her study, so Emma heads for the room, trepidation already building in her stomach. Things between her and the Captain have been reasonably civil since the whole thunderstorm slash bedroom slash slightly sexy ogling incident, and by civil Emma means they’re nonexistent, save a terse ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good evening’ and occasionally ‘Good afternoon’ whenever the two run into each other around the house, and occasional enquiries after the children, though often those will be directed to Mrs. Lucas, who’ll direct them to Emma, who’ll direct them back to Mrs. Lucas, who’ll direct them back to the Captain.

But, whatever. She’s getting paid, so it totally doesn’t matter what Captain Mills thinks of her, with her stupid appraising stares and unreadable expressions. As long as Emma doesn’t get fired, their relations are absolutely _fine_.

She’s just coming to this conclusion in her head as she knocks on the solid wood of the study door. There’s some jazz music playing softly from the other side, and Emma listens curiously, the tune familiar but not one she is able to place, and somehow the last thing she expected Captain Mills to listen to in her spare time. A few beats pass with no response from inside, and Emma knocks again, a little louder. Only a split second later comes the unmistakable tinkle of shattering glass, and Emma frowns in concern, automatically knocking a third time.

“Uh, Captain Mills?” Silence. Emma hesitates, placing her hand on the door knob. “Captain Mills?” she ventures again. “Is it okay if I come in?”

At the next answering silence, Emma decides to throw caution to the wind and enter the study. She’s arrested with a view of Captain Mills leaning slightly against her desk, one hand gripped around its edge so tightly that the skin is turning white. The other hand is hanging limply at her side, and, Emma realises with a jolt, is shaking. What was probably once a glass lies in pieces on the hardwood floor.

“Captain Mills?” she lets out, horrified to find that it’s come out as little more than a whisper. There’s a terrifyingly long moment of silence that becomes deafening to Emma’s ears before eventually being broken by Captain Mills’ voice, hoarse but even and carefully measured, as though being forcibly contained.

“Miss Swan. Excuse my...rudeness,” she says in an admirably smooth tone. “I thought I heard the door, but I’m afraid I was...momentarily distracted.” Her voice cracks a little on the last word, and Emma feels her stomach lurch in something like pain at the sound of the inflection.

“No, it’s fine,” she replies. “I just - I, uh, heard the glass smashing and got worried, I’m sorry -”

“Ah, yes,” Captain Mills says, glancing down at the aforementioned glass lying at her feet. Her hand hasn’t moved from the desk, and Emma can’t help but notice the continued tightness with which it’s wrapped around the edge of the wood. “The glass. I have a tendency to be...clumsy, sometimes.”

Emma doesn’t believe for a minute that this is true, and already in her bones is the growing feeling of something being incredibly wrong, but she can’t articulate it and even if she could she wouldn’t in any circumstance do so to Captain Mills.

“Oh, me too,” she says instead in a carefully appeasing tone, offering Captain Mills a smile. “I don't think I can even get through the day without tripping, or knocking something over, or…” She trails off awkwardly, realising she’d started babbling and trying to halt the proverbial car crash before it occurs. Captain Mills coughs.

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” she says. Emma feels her eyebrows rise of their own accord.

“You have?” She wasn't aware that Captain Mills even noticed when they were in the same room. Emma watches as her face tightens a little, mouth pursing as though she's said something wrong.

“It would be difficult not to, Miss Swan,” she says eventually, before coughing and turning away from Emma towards the window. “Did you need something?”

“I was just going to ask if I could take the kids out for a while before lunch.”

“The kids,” Captain Mills repeats absently. Her eyes seems fixed on the trees outside the window, but there’s enough of a glaze over them for Emma to realise that she’s really staring without seeing.

“Yes. I mean, if that’s okay,” Emma says a little awkwardly, acutely aware of her hands and how useless they are in this moment, hanging stupidly at her sides. She feels a bizarre urge to reach out and place a steadying palm to the small of the Captain’s back, perhaps as some form of comfort. There’s a second when Captain Mills lets out a harsh breath, and Emma almost follows through on the desire, feet taking a step forward despite themselves. Suddenly, the Captain turns around. The moment evaporates.

“You’ll have them back for lunch,” she says, eyes dark and not entirely present.

“Of course,” Emma says automatically. She takes a deep breath. “Captain, are you - are you alright?”

“Fine,” comes the immediate response, snappish enough that Emma almost takes a step back. But she doesn’t. She’s been in enough care homes to know what a caged animal looks like, to know that the fear and anger are really being directed towards something that isn’t even there any more. She holds the Captain’s gaze instead, steadily, until the woman opposite lets out a breath that Emma didn’t even realise she’d been holding.

“Are you sure?” Emma murmurs.

“Yes, Miss Swan,” comes the response, her tone not as rigid before, a little looser around the edges. Captain Mills has stepped in front of the desk, narrowing the distance between them. Emma becomes acutely aware of the spaces between them, the gaps between their arms and hands and legs. The Captain is watching her.

“Thank you for your concern,” she says, slow and careful. “Please don’t forget that the children must be back for lunch. I would like to spend some time with them before I head back to New York.”

“Of course,” Emma says. “I’ll - I’ll take them now. Is two okay?”

“Hm?” Captain Mills seems to have zoned out again, and blinks as though she hasn’t even heard Emma speak.

“Two o’clock,” Emma repeats. “For lunch. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” the Captain says a little absently. “Yes, of course.”

“Cool. Thank you.”

Captain Mills only turns back towards the window, moving to look at the shattered glass and sighing as she starts to root around for what Emma presumes will be a dustpan and brush. She takes this as her cue to leave and does so, letting out a sigh of her own as she lets the door click shut behind her. The song inside changes and Karen Carpenter’s voice rings sadly from inside the study in its place. Emma tamps down on her feelings of helplessness and goes to find Ruby.

 

“Are you okay?”

Emma jolts a little at the words, and turns to find that the source of them is, surprisingly, Henry, who rarely speaks to her unless entirely necessary. He’s eyeing her shrewdly, but with a hint of concern.

“Okay?” Emma repeats, before blinking. “Of course I am, kid. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Henry shrugs. “You’ve been kinda quiet this whole time. Also, Elsa had to ask you the same question three times before you actually answered.”

Emma bites her lip. “Sorry. I’m just kind of - I don’t know. It’s been a weird day. I’m not trying to ignore any of you, I promise.”

“I didn’t say you were. We’re used to being ignored,” he says plainly in response. “This isn’t the same. Which is why I asked if you were okay.”

She swallows, uncomfortable with Henry’s matter-of-fact tone, as though a child getting ignored is run of the mill. “I’m okay,” she says. “But can I, uh, ask you a question?”

He grins, looking more his age than Emma thinks she’s ever seen him. “You just did.”

“Can I ask you another question?”

“You just did.”

Emma snorts and ruffles his hair, eliciting a quiet noise of protest. “Okay, kid. I’m gonna ask you a third question.”

“Sure.”

She falls quiet for a moment, trying to work out how best to approach the topic. They’re walking back from the market, Elsa hand-in-hand with Anna whilst Mulan kicks leaves up the sidewalk and Ruby plays a game with Roland and Belle that Emma can never quite understand the rules of. Passersby smile at them as they go past, and it isn’t unusual for some of the elder girls or Henry to stop and say hello on occasion. Emma has quickly come to realise that the Mills children are something of a favourite around the town; today, Roland and Anna each managed to get an entire chocolate bar for free at the market, and the vendor wouldn’t take her money no matter how much she insisted. There’s a fondness for them in Storybrooke that’s palpable in every shared smile and wave.

“Do you feel like you see your mom enough?” is what Emma finally manages to say several seconds later. Henry’s eyes snap up to hers.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I just mean - I’m not trying to imply anything about your mom,” she says quickly. “It’s just - I can totally tell how much she loves you, and…” This is true, at least. Captain Mills adores her children and it bleeds into every move she makes around them and word she says to them, even if the subject matter is harsh, which it often is. There’s a thin layer of gruffness to her attitude with them - sometimes even awkwardness, especially with the older girls. But Emma has been voyeur to love over the years and wanted it for herself enough times that she isn’t fooled for a moment.

“And you’re wondering why she’s always in New York,” Henry finishes for her.

“Kind of. Maybe.” Emma frowns. “I don’t really know what I’m asking.”

“Obviously,” Henry says with an eye-roll that reminds her of Ruby. “You’re being a bad snooper.”

“A - what?”

“A snooper is someone who wants to know about other people,” Henry explains. “A _bad_ snooper is a snooper who doesn’t ask questions properly. So it just makes it obvious that they’re snooping.”

“O...kay…” Emma says, frown only deepening. “Sorry?”

“It’s fine,” he brushes off. “We’ll teach you to be better, eventually. And I don’t really mind that you’re snooping about Mom. People do it all the time.”

“Do they?”

“Obviously,” he says again. “She’s, like, the only interesting person in Storybrooke.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Apart from maybe Mrs. Lucas. She’s scary but I think that’s because she’s seen lots of crazy things.”

“You notice a lot, don’t you?”

“The most important thing a writer should do is notice things,” Henry tells her seriously.

“You want to be an author?”

“Yeah.” Henry tucks his hands into his pockets, thin elbows sticking out slightly. “Mom says that authors don’t make any money and her and my life would be easier if I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer instead. But I don’t think she really means it because she buys me notebooks all the time and every year for Christmas I get a new fountain pen to use. And she always reads my stories.”

“You’ve written stories already, huh?”

“Mostly they’re ones for Mom when she goes away so she doesn’t get bored. And then when she gets back she’s put stickers at all her favourite bits and written why she likes each bit. But in pencil, because otherwise it would ruin it.”

“Of course,” Emma says with a nod. Internally, she wonders how the hell a mother like Regina Mills can bring herself to be away from the children she so obviously worships for months at a time.

“Mom has her own stuff to deal with,” Henry informs her suddenly, without prompting. There’s guilt set in the crinkles around his eyes, as though he feels like he’s said something he shouldn’t have. “Ruby says...Ruby says we’re all sad for different reasons and sometimes it’s hard to solve. I think Mom sometimes finds it hard to solve her problems. So I miss her but…” he trails off and shrugs, clearly embarrassed. “It’s whatever.” There’s a beat, before he says, with reinvigoration: “Hey, do you know what’s for lunch?”

“Nah, I just know that I’m under orders to get you back in time. So it’s probably good,” Emma tells him with a grin, though her mind is still weighted down with Henry’s words and the memory of what she’d walked into earlier in Captain Mills’ study. “I know your mom wants to spend time with you before she goes.”

At this, Mulan, only a few feet in front of them, turns a little towards her and Henry. “I forgot she’s leaving again tomorrow,” she says, face seemingly blank, but there’s a hint of sadness in her tone. Emma opens her mouth to say something, but Henry beats her to it, striding to catch up with his sister.

“Only for, like, three days,” he tells her, nudging her with his elbow. “Then she’s coming back.”

“With _the dragon_ ,” Mulan says grumpily. Emma’s eyes snap up to their backs at the distaste in her tone. She’d been under the impression from Mrs. Lucas that the children loved their aunt.

“But also with Aunt Zelena,” Henry replies. Now, her curiosity peaks. If the dragon isn’t Zelena, then who is it?

The question plagues her for the rest of the walk and continues to once they arrive back at the house, but she’s hesitant to ask any more of the children, and it’s not as if the Captain or Mrs. Lucas are constantly willing to divulge information. The Captain herself answers the door upon their return, and Emma notes she looks considerably better than she did earlier in the morning.

“Here we are!” she says in as upbeat a tone as possible, despite Captain Mills’ seeming indifference apart from a cordial nod and greeting of “Miss Swan” when she’d first opened the door. “Back in time for lunch.”

“Yes,” says the Captain, looking at the children. “The table’s already been set, so go on through,” she tells them. Emma starts for the stairs towards her room as they obey, filing into the dining room amidst their own excited chatter, but she’s stopped by a hesitant “Miss Swan?” from below and turns to face its source.

“Captain?” she answers, feeling her own brow furrow in confusion.

“I was...under the impression that you would be joining us for lunch,” Captain Mills says with what seems like some difficulty.

“Oh,” Emma says dumbly. “Were you?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t under the impression that Captain Mills could look any more uncomfortable than she did only two seconds ago, but is promptly proven wrong now. “Of course, if you have any other arrangements, then -”

“No,” she says quickly. “No, I don’t. I just - I thought this was your time with the kids, you know, before you leave tomorrow.”

The Captain’s face flits quickly through a series of emotions that Emma can’t quite catch as she considers this, but eventually settles on one slightly gentler than her usual indifference, almost hesitant. “Well, it is,” she says stiffly. “But you can be there too. I - I made spaghetti bolognaise.”

This is said as though it has a particular meaning to it, and Emma thinks for a moment before remembering; two days ago, her and Belle had been having a rather loud, spirited discussion regarding Italian food on the stairs that had involved Emma declaring her love for it several times over. It had been brought to a grinding halt when the Captain had descended onto the staircase, awkwardly stepping between them on her way down to the kitchen. She’s caught by surprise again.

“Well, in that case,” she says with a tentative smile. “How could I refuse?”

The Captain stares at her for a moment, though not in the absent way from the morning which was as though Emma wasn’t really there. This time it’s intent and careful, like she’s trying to document something. Emma feels uncomfortable under the gaze but drawn to it all the same.

“We set you a place at the table,” she says at last, the words soft and fizzing their way up and down Emma’s spine. She turns abruptly and strides away into the dining room, and Emma follows, a little dazed. The children are already sat at the table and digging into their meals, Roland giggling with pasta sauce smeared all over his face as Elsa rolls her eyes at him but wipes it away gently. The food smells all sorts of amazing, and she doesn’t hesitate to spoon a healthy helping out onto her plate.

She doesn’t realise that Captain Mills is eyeing her with some amusement until she’s halfway through her second forkful and she says: “No grace this afternoon, Miss Swan?”

The tone is light enough for Emma to look up, and she’s surprised to see the Captain giving her an amused look. Ruby and Mulan chortle at the comment, and she spares them a look before swallowing and saying, “Not today, Captain.” Then, feeling daring, she adds: “I didn’t realise you were such a big fan of them.”

“I’m not,” Captain Mills replies dryly. “The comment was made in relief.”

“Sure,” Emma says with a smirk at her pasta. “Either way, I would say no grace today is kinda your fault.”

“Well, I’m happy to take the credit, but don't know why you would say so,” the Captain answers. Part of Emma feels a desperate urge to continue the conversation for as long as possible (even though all it's really about is dining habits), not even sure that it's really real and Captain Mills is actually interested in talking to her.

She grins. “Sure you do. You made lunch today, right, Captain?” She pops a forkful of spaghetti into her mouth and swallows before adding: “If it didn't smell so good, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been distracted from my grace-giving duties.”

“You’re quite the flatterer, Miss Swan.”

This _Miss Swan_ is markedly different from all the others that have ever come out of Captain Mills’ mouth, and it makes Emma’s breath stutter in her throat. She busies herself briefly with her fork, summoning her courage to look the Captain in the eye and say with another smirk: “Only to people I really like.”

This elicits a noise of vague disgust from beside her, and Emma glances in its direction to see Ruby staring at her with her nose wrinkled. A brief look around the table yields glimpses of similar expressions from Elsa and Mulan, and Emma feels her cheeks colour as she realises she's totally been flirting with their mom right in front of them.

(She's not sure she should take all the blame, though. There's situational factors, like the fact that Captain Mills is totally, totally hot and the way she says _Miss_ _Swan_ is totally, totally hot and also it's not like Storybrooke is offering up any other alternative attractive people, so Emma’s feeling a little high and dry right now. Also factors like the way Captain Mills was maybe possibly totally reciprocating the very minor but still _there_ flirtation that just took place. And that's a thing Emma’s going to be thinking about a _lot_ over the next few days, go figure.)

There’s a beat of silence, before Captain Mills clears her throat and asks Belle how her latest book ( _The Little Prince_ ) is going. This is enough of a jolt back to mundanity to make Emma dive back into her spaghetti with an energy afforded to her by the embarrassment that’s quickly curdling in the pit of her stomach. The conversation topics vary after that, inevitably wandering to the Captain’s fast approaching trip.

“You’re bringing Auntie Zelena?” Belle inquires at one point, looking up from her bowl where the spaghetti is neatly curled around her fork.

“Yes,” Captain Mills says. “She’s very excited to see all of you.”

Roland asks, “Has she brought presents?”

“Don’t speak with your mouth full, Roland. I should hope that you’re looking forward to more than just the presents that your aunt may bring with her when she arrives. But, knowing her, I would expect the answer would be yes.”

Roland grins so widely that his face looks near to splitting in two, and Anna lets out an excited cheer. Beside him, Captain Mills rolls her eyes and mutters something about spoiled children, but she’s smiling too as she watches Anna erupt into an animated monologue directed mostly at Elsa about what she’s hoping her aunt will want to bring.

“Are you bringing anyone else back?” Ruby asks over the enthusiastic chatter of her younger siblings, the tone not quite light enough to be entirely innocent. Captain Mills looks away from Anna and Roland and purses her lips.

“You know Maleficent is coming too,” she says.

“Just checking,” Ruby says, though she exchanges a dark look with Mulan that belies the words.

Emma clears her throat, unable to bear her own curiosity any longer. “Who’s Maleficent?” she asks. The table abruptly falls quiet at the question.

“Maleficent Drake,” answers the Captain. “She’s a very old friend of mine from college.”

“Oh,” Emma replies, with the strong feeling that something’s been left unsaid that only grows upon a quick glance at the matching frowns on most of the children’s faces. “Cool.”

“Yes,” the Captain says. Then, to the children: “Mal’s actually been asking after all of you.”

“Sure she has,” Elsa mumbles, though if Captain Mills hears she clearly chooses to ignore the comment.

“I’m sure you’ll all make her feel very welcome when she arrives,” she says pointedly instead. “And while I’m away, please don’t give Miss Swan any trouble.”

Emma blinks in surprise at the mention of her name. “Oh, they’ve been totally fine the last couple of times,” she assures the Captain. “Honestly. No worries at all.

Captain Mills lets out a hum that doesn’t sound all too convinced. “At any rate,” she says. “I’ll only be gone a few days this time. And then I’ll be home for a while.”

“Really?” Mulan looks hesitantly excited but also somewhat sceptical, as though she’s expecting to be disappointed at some point, or for Captain Mills to say _no, not really_. Emma watches the face of the woman in question soften, as though she can read all the nuances of Mulan’s expression in one glance.

“Really,” she confirms with a rare smile. “And besides, I’m not sure you even _need_ me. Henry and Ruby keep you in line, don’t they, when Miss Swan comes up against any difficulties? Though she’s clearly been very competent so far.”

Following this sentence, Henry, Ruby and Emma all preen slightly at the subtle praise that’s been afforded to them. Captain Mills’ mouth turns up slightly at the corners, almost on the way to a smile but not quite there, and there’s a glint in her eyes that shows she knows exactly what she’s doing. Emma can feel herself staring but can’t quite bring herself to stop.

 

All the Mills children act far older than they are, something that Emma knows is a typical result of time in the foster system. But evening is always when she remembers how old they really are, Roland out like a light by half past seven, and Anna, Belle and Henry following only a few hours later. By half past eleven, the only lights still on under the doors are Ruby’s and Captain Mills’, when she’s home. Tonight, it’s one in the morning and the house is silent and Emma’s still awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of her own breathing. She wants to sleep but it’s one of those nights when her mind will get caught on anything it comes across, the abbey and Foster Family Number Ten and Captain Mills all jumbling into one mix. The minutes tick by and she’s so hyper-aware of her surroundings that a creak and the sound of steps in the hallway, punctured by curiously stuttering breaths, are enough to jolt her suddenly. Emma gets up and out of bed quietly, approaching her own door when she’s stopped by voices from outside.

“Regina?” comes a hushed whisper.

“Ruby,” is the voice in response, harsh and hoarse on Emma’s ears. “Just getting water. Go - go back to sleep.”

A moment filled with more heavy breathing, then Ruby’s voice breaking it up slightly. “Regina. _Regina. Mom._ ”

There’s suddenly a muffled sob that hits Emma right in her gut, and the rustle of clothing brushing up against itself. Someone is making quiet hushing noises and murmuring words Emma can only just make out; _breathe, out, in, one, two, three_. She doesn’t know how long this goes on for before Captain Mills speaks.

“Ruby, I - I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’ve been - I don’t know what it is that -”

“Don’t say sorry. You don’t need to know,” Ruby whispers, voice sounding dangerously shaky too. “Let us help you, Mom.”

The word _Mom_ results in another sharp intake of breath. Emma already has questions flying around her head and this only adds another to the mix.

“Ruby…”

“You know Archie is -”

“ _Ruby_.”

“ _No_. You can’t just carry on - you _need_ to -”

“It’s not that easy -”

“It’s only as easy as you make it!”

Silence. The exchange has been conducted entirely in whispers and hushed tones, though no less lacking in heat; Emma doesn’t dare crack open her door, but she can imagine the two of them standing face to face, twin stances of crossed arms and indignant glares.

Finally, Ruby says: “Please stop hurting yourself like this. We’re here for you.”

“Ruby, you’re still children. All of you. You can’t -”

“Mom!” The word comes out ugly, as though ripped from Ruby’s throat. Emma takes in a sharp breath despite herself in the midst of the silence that ensues. It’s unbearable, throttling the air from her lungs. Emma can’t imagine what the two people outside her door look like any more.

“I love you,” Ruby whispers, so quiet that Emma has to strain to catch the words. “I _love_ you.” The phrase wavers at the end, shaky with tears. There’s a sigh and more rustles of clothing.

“I know, darling,” Captain Mills murmurs. “I love you too. So much. I know I don’t - it’s -”

Emma feels her heart pounding in her chest, suddenly guilty at being witness to such a private moment. She inches away from the door, though still slowly enough to catch the final part of the exchange.

“Mom -”

“Ruby -”

“ _Please_. We - want you to stop hurting. If you just…”

“Ruby…” There’s a pause, before Captain Mills says: “I...I’m...it’s not…” Another pause, then a sigh and: “Go back to bed.”

“Regina -”

“Please. I’ll - I’ll see you in the morning.”

More creaks, then the neat click of a door shutting. The ensuing silence feels heavy on Emma’s ears after such a flurry of activity, and even as she slips into bed and feels the pervasive warmth of the sheets, turns over to press her cheek into her pillow and breathe in the clean smell of laundry, the sensory comforts aren't enough to lull her to sleep. She has too many questions that she doesn't even know how to ask, let alone get answers for.

 

The children are grumpy when their mother is away. On Thursday, Friday and over the weekend they become practically lethargic - moodily opting for Netflix and PlayStation in favour of the obstinately shining sun outside. Emma finds that she’s lost all her once willing conversation partners; even Roland is surprisingly quiet around Emma and his siblings. She watches on Sunday morning with vague distress as he sits quietly on the couch next to Henry, who is alternating between reading and writing, ink staining his fingers. It’s a far cry from his usual mornings with Henry, which consist mainly of trying to annoy him as much as usual (a task which has varying degrees of success, depending on how preoccupied the older boy is).

Captain Mills is due home today, and Roland is so silent, glancing intermittently towards the window as though expecting her any second, that Emma eventually gets antsy enough to leap up and say: “Okay! We're going out!”

Henry looks up at her from the couch, irritated. “It's cold,” he says.

“We have coats.”

“Mama’s coming home,” says Roland.

“Not till late,” she says. “Come on. It's sunny and frosty out there.”

“That's a reason we _shouldn't_ go out, not a reason we _should_ ,” says Henry.

“Wrong,” Emma sings. “This is when the world is at its best, young Mills. Everything's just right. All...crunchy.”

“ _Crunchy_?” Henry repeats with an extremely sceptical eyebrow.

“Okay, what would _you_ call it, Mister Author Man?”

He pauses a moment in serious thought. “Crisp,” he says after some time. “I would call it crisp.”

These kids and their smart words and thoughtful eyes, Emma thinks. Too much to handle.

“Well, how does making the most of a _crisp_ Sunday morning sound?” she asks. Henry grumbles inaudibly but gets up, and Emma, knowing immediately that she’ll have won all the kids over with just his assent, grins widely, scooping Roland up off the couch and blowing raspberries into his stomach until he squeals with laughter.

“Adventure time!” she declares loudly.

Mulan and Elsa are the hardest of the girls to win over. Much like Henry, they seem largely unimpressed by the prospect of going outside into what is, all romanticism aside, pretty cold weather. But Emma eventually resorts to her tried and tested, foolproof, never-ever-fail tactics: the classic ‘stand outside the door and talk at them until they relent’.

“ _Fine_ ,” Mulan huffs, jerking the door of her and Elsa’s bedroom open at last and cutting Emma off halfway through her newest monologue about the virtues of the bear claw pastry. “We’ll go outside. Just please, please stop talking.”

Emma grins. “I can do that,” she says.

Getting seven children ready to go anywhere is, Emma has discovered in the month she’s been here, a long and arduous task that never gets more efficient, no matter how many times you do it. By the time they make it to the park, it’s already half past four, and the sun is starting to set. Oh well, Emma thinks. It’ll be pretty, at least. And looking at the colour that’s gotten back into their cheeks, it was worth it, probably.

They take a good walk around the park, playing various games of tag and kicking halfheartedly at the soccer ball Emma had found in the garden and brought with her, though only Mulan is really coordinated enough to do anything with it, so they quickly stop. They also run into Archie with Pongo, which delights all of them, but Belle especially, who seems capable of throwing him sticks to fetch for hours on end.

The Problem that Didn’t Seem Like a Problem at the The Time starts with Ruby engaging Emma in a Shoving Battle on their walk out of the park, which is about as immature and fun as it sounds. Elsa calls them infantile (which, cool, the kid uses bigger words in normal conversation than Emma ever has in her life) as they keep trying to push each other further off the path, until eventually Ruby succeeds, with a particularly hard push, in toppling Emma over and into a mountain of leaves.

“Oof,” she lets out upon impact.

“Emma!” comes Anna’s high-pitched voice from an undetermined location. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m - peachy, kid,” she calls out, grunting slightly, even though her back hurts like a bitch and so does her ass. She pops her head up past the pile of leaves in front of her to see the kids standing around her, all at least slightly concerned (though Mulan is mostly just looking at her like she’s the stupidest person she’s ever met). “You know, this is actually pretty comfortable.”

“Really,” Ruby says. She’s grinning smugly.

“Really,” Emma says. “Hey, help me up.”

Ruby juts out a hand in assistance, and Emma takes it and pulls her down amidst screeches of protest. Fuelled by the adrenaline of revenge, Emma goes straight for the jugular and starts tickling Ruby until she’s gasping out her laughter.

“Do you surrender?” she asks fiercely but with a wide smile. Ruby’s siblings promptly lost interest about twenty seconds into Emma’s tickling torture, and have wandered a little ahead. Ruby is shuddering with laughter, ceasing for a rare moment to look like a fully-grown adult with a myriad of troubles and stresses hovering just behind her.

“Yes!” she manages at last. “I surrender, I surrender!”

Still grinning, Emma stands, and this is when she realises she is completely covered in mud. Ruby eyes her briefly with disgust, before quickly bursting into more laughter.

“You look so stupid,” she gets out between laughs. Emma scowls, though it’s not like she can disagree.

“Oh yeah? Take a look at yourself, Red,” she replies, reaching for Ruby’s arm and pulling her up. Sure enough, the girl’s attire of skirt, tights and sweater is completely brown, and judging by the smell coming from both of them, it isn’t all mud.

“Gross,” Ruby says, nose wrinkling. “I liked this skirt.”

“It’ll come out with a wash,” Emma assures her, remembering all the times she slept rough and ended up vaguely similar situations. “Come on, let’s find the others.”

“What _happened_ to you?” inquires Henry with abject horror once they do.

“Got _slimed_ on by the _Mud Monster_ ,” Ruby says with a grin, reaching for her brother’s face with grimy hands. He lets out a distinctly feminine yell in protest and quickly takes refuge behind Elsa, who is eyeing both Emma and Ruby with revulsion.

“Did you _actually_?” asks Roland.

“No,” Emma says, just as Ruby tells him, “Yes.” He eyes them both with suspicion, before announcing: “You are di- _gus_ -ing.”

“Digusing? Really?” Emma asks with faint amusement.

“Yes,” he says firmly.

“It’s ‘disgusting’,” Belle informs him.

“Said that,” Roland replies. This serves as the cue for the predictable _No you didn’t_ , _Yes I did_ argument between Anna and Roland that lasts for the rest of the walk home. Ruby and Emma are forced to trail behind the others on the sidewalk, silently made outcasts because of their smell.

“You smell _disgusting_ ,” Ruby tells Emma as they round the corner onto Mifflin Street.

Emma snorts. “Don’t you mean _disgusing_?”

“No,” she says, unamused.  “I mean disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t smell too great yourself, sunshine.”

“This is your fault.”

Emma gasps in protest. “ _Who_ pushed me into the leaves in the first place?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have lost your balance.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have pushed me so hard!”

“You didn’t have to pull me in with you!”

“Of course I did! I wasn’t about to declare defeat!”

“Everything has to be a fight to you,” Ruby sniffs disdainfully in true Regina Mills fashion.

“When I _win_ , yeah.”

“Neither of us have _won_ ,” she says with a pointed look at both of their clothes.

“Nah,” Emma replies with what she knows is an infuriating smirk. “You surrendered. Also, you look like literal dog turd right now. I only fit into one of those two categories. So I totally won.”

Ruby opens her mouth, then closes it and glares. “Whatever,” she says finally, though she’s clearly not genuinely irritated. Emma’s smile only widens as they arrive at the mansion.

“You should probably shower before your mom gets home, though. If she sees you like this, I’m totally fired. This definitely counts as _assisting in your antics_.”

“Even though they’re actually _your_ antics.”

“Whatever, you’re taking part, so they’re yours too,” Emma tells her. Henry has already reached the door, the other children in tow, and Emma is reaching for her key to open it when it swings open of its own accord to reveal Captain Mills.

This is the precise moment when The Problem that Didn’t Seem Like a Problem at the The Time becomes just The Problem, because Captain Mills smiles warmly upon seeing the first six of her children, greeting them calmly even over their excitement and accepting their enthusiastic embraces, then her gaze travels to Ruby, then to Emma, then back to Ruby again, and there is suddenly no smiling. No smiling at all, none of the smiling.

“Ruby,” Captain Mills says. Her daughter smiles sheepishly, cheeks turning a dangerously light shade of pink that’s only dangerous because of how rarely it’s ever seen on the girl’s face. Emma watches the unfamiliar expression, realises that it’s utter embarrassment, then promptly feels like a piece of shit.

“Hi, Mom,” Ruby says apologetically. “Welcome home?”

The warmth has evaporated abruptly. Emma feels like she’s just witnessed a physical wall being built between Captain Mills and her children. “We’ll talk later. Go and shower, please.”

“Mom -”

“Shower,” the Captain orders shortly. “Now. The rest of you, inside.”

Emma realises that if she were to watch Captain Mills order around her squadron, the efficiency and speed with which her orders would be followed wouldn’t differ in the slightest from what she observes now in the children. Less than ten seconds later, she and the Captain are alone in the hallway. Emma’s stomach begins to sink in trepidation.

“Miss Swan,” Captain Mills starts, voice cold. The tone already begins to rile her up, because if there’s one thing Emma has never really managed to handle, it’s someone talking down to her.

“Captain,” she says stiffly in response.

“Would you care to inform me as to what exactly happened today?”

“Sure.” Emma lets her tone turn pleasant, for some reason only goaded further by the fire that’s starting to make itself known in the Captain’s expression. “I woke the children up for breakfast pretty late today, since it was Sunday. We ate together and Belle told everyone about the new book she’s reading, which is actually very interesting and about a princess who -”

“Miss Swan,” Captain Mills repeats again, this time with undiluted anger contained in every syllable. “You seem to be under the impression that my time is yours to waste. _What happened today_?”

“We went to the park and me and Ruby fell into a pile of leaves,” Emma says with a shrug, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible despite the fact that she’s never seen the Captain this angry before, not even after the storm the month before. “No big deal.”

“No big deal,” the Captain repeats derisively. “When you’re the one paying for Ruby’s clothes, Miss Swan, you’re perfectly welcome to comment on whether or not them being ruined is a _big deal_.”

“Captain,” Emma starts, desperately trying to contain her own frustration. “It’s just mud. It’ll wash out, okay? And it was an accident -”

“Well, perhaps you could reserve these _accidents_ for yourself instead of having them befall my children instead?”

“ _Seriousl_?” she says, exasperation getting the better of her. “Are you seriously going to get angry with me on _this_?”

“Would you rather I picked any number of your other misdemeanours?”

“ _Misdemeanours_?”

“When I _hired_ you, Miss Swan,” Captain Mills says, utterly vicious, “I did so under the impression that I was getting an adult who would look after the children, not one _more_ child who never managed to grow _up_.”

Something inside Emma snaps abruptly, an elastic band pulled too taut. “I’d rather act like the kids once in a while then make them worry about every move they make because they don’t want to act immaturely in front of their _militant_ _mom_ ,” she blurts out harshly before she can stop herself. The Captain’s lip curls with disdain.

“Well, they haven’t complained about their _militant mom_ yet,” she growls out. Emma sees her begin to turn away and her anger rises further, washing over her with all the force of a wave, an entire month’s worth of being treated like she’s not even there or patronised or made to feel completely inconsequential.

“Yeah? That’s because they love you too much!” she says, loudly enough to stop Captain Mills in her tracks. “Maybe if you managed to talk to them like your _children_ and not your _soldiers_ -”

The Captain turns around. “I don’t wish you to discuss my children in this manner,” she snarls.

“Well you gotta hear from _some_ one, _Captain Mills_. It’s not like you’re ever home long enough to actually _know_ them -”

“I said, I don’t want to hear anymore from you about my children!”

“We all have to do some things we don’t want to, they must have taught you _that_ in the air force,” Emma hurls out, words quickened with her own bitterness. “Look at Ruby -”

A look of fear passes briefly over Captain Mills’ face before quickly being replaced by the anger again. “You will not say one _word_ about Ruby, Miss Swan -”

“She’s still a _kid_. You’re treating her like an adult and she just keeps trying to make it - to make it work because she _hates_ disappointing you, and she wants to _help_ you and you keep pushing her away - and Elsa, God, it’s like she’s always waiting for something bad to happen, like she needs to protect the others herself because she doesn’t even know if you’ll be there - and _Henry_ -”

The fury has drained away to leave a pain that borders on anguish, leaking from every feature on Captain Mills’ face. “Don’t you _dare talk to me about my son_ -”

“He misses you!” Emma lets out, and she realises belatedly that she’s shouting. “He misses you _so much_ , they all do, and it’s not like there’s anyone there to _replace_ you!”

“Miss _Swan_ -”

“And Mulan just pretends she’s tough so she doesn’t show how hurt she is when you go away or when the others brush her aside sometimes -”

“That will do!”

“And they all just want your _time_ , they’re waiting for you to - to _love them_ -”

“I said that will _do_!” Captain Mills declares loudly, but it’s in vain, Emma feeling her entire stream of consciousness coming out, and suddenly she doesn’t even know if the anger and the hurt is about her or the children or the abbey or about something else entirely, but all she can do is keep talking, mouth running itself.

“- and you know what’s fucking terrible is that you _do_ , you so obviously _do_ , you just don’t _show_ it enough, or properly, or - and God, they’re fucking _foster kids_ , they need all the love they can _get_ -”

“I don’t care to hear anything more from you about my children,” the Captain lets out harshly, taking a step forward.

“I’m not finished, Captain!”

“Oh, yes you are, Captain!”

This is enough to silence Emma immediately. She watches Captain Mills’ eyes widen at her own mistake.

“Miss Swan,” she corrects after a brief pause. “That will do, Miss Swan.” There’s another beat of silence, and Emma becomes acutely aware of how close they’re standing, chests heaving. The anger is still heavy in her bones, and she wants to scream, long and loud and forever.

“Now,” the Captain says slowly, icy cold. “You will pack your bags this minute, and return to your _abbey_.” No sooner do the words leave her mouth than the sound of a piano playing somewhere inside becomes audible. Emma watches as Captain Mills blinks in surprise.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“That’s a piano,” Emma says dumbly. The Captain fixes her with a withering look.

“ _Yes_ ,” she says testily. “But _who_ is _playing it_?”

Emma shrugs, but swallows hard, moving away from her. “I might have suggested to Henry that your sister and friend would love to come home to some music.”

Captain Mills’ eyes suddenly take on a slightly dazed look. “Henry,” she murmurs in wonder. “I…”

Emma bites her lip. “He’s been practicing all the time you’ve been away. If you - if you go inside now, you could probably catch the whole song.”

“Yes,” says Captain Mills, not looking at her. “Yes, it’s _Autumn Leaves_. His favourite to play. I should…” She turns, still stunned, and takes quick, shaky steps towards the living room.

Emma hesitates for a brief second before following, stopping beside the Captain to lean against the doorframe. Inside, most of the children - sans Ruby - are sitting around the piano where Henry is playing. On the couch are two women: a willowy redhead with sharp eyes, and a perfectly poised blonde sitting with Roland on her lap and a vaguely amused but somewhat impressed smile on red-painted lips. Henry plays the song with an exquisite amount of concentration on his face, and Emma wouldn’t even be able to tell his mistakes if it weren’t for the huge wince he makes every time one happens. Even so, he finishes it carefully before looking up, and upon seeing his mother, his cheeks start to colour.

“Mom,” he says hesitantly, fingers still resting on the keys. “I didn’t realise you were - here.”

“Henry.”

“I’m - I know you don’t like - that we don’t - I’m sorry, I just - Emma mentioned it would be nice if we played for Mal and Auntie Zelena when they were here -” he cuts himself off and cringes at having mentioned Emma’s name, clearly under the impression that he’s implicating her in a crime. “I mean, uh, _I_ thought that -”

“ _Corazon_ ,” Captain Mills whispers, moving forward. “It was beautiful.”

Henry beams so brightly he could be mistaken for a sun. Emma’s heart aches. “Seriously? You liked it?”

“Of course I did,” she says, smiling almost wider than him. Henry moves carefully from the piano stool towards her, grasps at her waist jerkily as though he’s scared she might vanish. The Captain welcomes his embrace immediately, like she’s been starved of it for an age, and she only pulls away for a second to pull Anna and Belle in, picking one up in each arm and pressing her face to theirs as Roland barrels into their legs.

“Oh, and I’ve missed you, my darlings,” she says, voice trembling a little as Mulan and Elsa step forward hesitantly, and Emma can tell she’s not just talking about the past three days. “I’ve...I’ve missed you -” She cuts herself off with a sharp breath, then smiles, bright blinding, tugs the older girls in and presses kisses to Elsa’s face until she giggles at the contact.

“How touching,” the redheaded woman says dryly from her place on the couch, just audible above the relieved laughter and loud chatter of children who have saved days’ worth of jokes and anecdotes and ideas for their mother and are getting the chance to release them all at once. Ruby has slipped inside from the other door of the living room and joined the embrace without a second of hesitation, and Captain Mills takes a moment to kiss her hair, still wet from her shower. Emma sees the blonde slap the other woman’s knee and roll her eyes.

“Don’t, Zelena,” she says, voice rich and well-formed. “The children have missed their mother. And she’s missed them, you know it.”

“Oh, whatever,” says Zelena moodily, although even Emma can tell that the irritation isn’t genuine. “Not like they have to shove it in our faces.”

Emma takes one last long look at the Mills’ children and their mother before inching her way out of the door and into the now completely darkened hallway. Now, she guesses, it really is back to the abbey. She may have kind of maybe started to help fix a family, but it’s probably better to leave now before she has to do something that involves too many feelings (e.g. say goodbye to Roland, cutest kid alive). And besides, she realises suddenly, her ass is so fired. She swore at Captain Mills, like, four times in one sentence.

“Idiot,” Emma mumbles to herself, placing a hand on the bottom of the bannister. There’s still light and noise streaming from the living room, and the familiar empty feeling of being outside something everyone else is inside of settles over her like mist. “Idiot, idiot, idiot,” she mutters again, feeling her throat thicken with unmistakable emotion. She still stinks of dog shit and resolves that she should probably take a shower before she leaves. Emma’s just mounted the first couple of steps on the staircase when the sound of footsteps advancing begins to echo louder in the hallway; she doesn’t let it affect her pace, though she does briefly consider actually just sprinting up to the first floor landing.

“Miss Swan?”

God, she really does not need this right now. “I know,” Emma says, voice coming out too strained to sound normal as she pauses on the steps but doesn’t dare look around. “I’m going now, I promise. I just - I kind of wanted a shower, if that’s okay? Because I still smell like - you know. But after that, I’m leaving, seriously. Maybe you could, uh - say goodbye to the kids for me?” God, her voice is shaking. Stupid Emma, stupid feelings, stupid, stupid, stupid.

There’s a long silence in response. Eventually, Emma can’t stand it any longer, clears her throat and starts continuing her journey up the stairs. “Cool. I’ll be gone by midnight.”

“Miss Swan, I owe you an apology.”

This is enough to make Emma pause again, but this time to turn around too.

“What?” she asks, quiet.

Captain Mills looks uncomfortable, but there’s also a sort of stubbornness shining in her eyes, like this is something she’s determined to see through. “I have been...less than kind to you this past month,” she says, a little stiltedly, like she’s been rehearsing the words in her head. “When in reality you have managed to understand my children in the short time you’ve been here far better than I have done in years.”

Emma feels her face twist with guilt, realising that her monologue earlier mostly implied that Captain Mills is an absolutely shitty mom, which isn’t even true. “Captain…”

“You brought music back into the house,” Captain Mills says softly, looking up at her and making eye contact for the first time. “I had forgotten.”

Emma feels at a loss for words. “You don’t…I was, uh, I was really rude to you earlier. I swore, like, a billion times. And - I - I said stuff that was way out of line. I don’t - I don’t have to stay.”

“Yes, you were. You did.” The Captain moves up onto the staircase until she’s only two steps below Emma, and they’re almost at a level height. “But I think the children would quite like it if you did stay,” she murmurs, eyeing her hesitantly as though she has no idea of how Emma’s heart is in her throat at the words and the tone in which they’re being delivered, which Emma supposes she doesn’t.

“Okay,” she manages to breathe.

Captain Mills smiles very slightly, moving back. “Good,” she says, clearing her throat. “Perhaps you should take a shower, Miss Swan.”

“Emma,” she dares to venture. The Captain blinks in surprise.

“What?”

“I’m Emma. Not Miss Swan. I just - you know, I live in your house, so I think we can manage first-name basis, maybe. ”

The Captain looks briefly as though she’s about to argue, before frowning. “Of course,” she says. “If that’s what you prefer.” She retreats the few steps of the staircase. “Good night, Mi -  Emma.”

“Night,” Emma replies quietly, feeling suddenly exhausted as she watches her retreat back into the living room. It’s been a long, weird day and an even longer, weirder week, and she needs at least forty-eight hours of sleep and potentially some very strong whiskey, not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from 'how can love survive?', which was in the original version of the musical but was sadly cut out from the film which means no one knows it. you're welcome for that pointless piece of trivia.


	3. i leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye

**PART III: I LEAVE AND HEAVE A SIGH AND SAY GOODBYE**

**EMMA DISCOVERS THREE THINGS** in the month of November. Firstly, Captain Mills is gay. Secondly, she might also be gay. And thirdly, she might be kind of gay for Captain Mills.

Her second and third discoveries are less discoveries and more understandings of pretty glaringly obvious facts. She stares at Captain Mills _a lot_ , and finds her voice all kinds of sexy, and occasionally has not very G-rated dreams about what sort of things she’d like to hear said in that voice, so really the only shocking thing is it took her this long for the realisation to surface fully into her consciousness. It’s fine, because she’s a nun, she tells herself. Or an ex-nun. Either way, sexual repression is kind of her _modus operandi_.

Her first discovery is made, uncomfortably, upon her first conversation alone with Zelena Mills.

“So you’re the nanny,” Zelena says, surveying her with shrewd eyes. Emma bristles, acutely aware of the way in which she’s being silently judged.

“Yes,” she says, a little tersely. Zelena only smirks in response.

“No need to be quite so...uptight about it,” she drawls. “I don’t bite. And besides, you’re to be congratulated. A whole month in the house without being driven out by the children? I don’t think even Regina’s managed that one.”

“Right,” Emma says. “Thanks. So how come you’re British?”

Zelena purses her lips. “The answer to _that_ question is long and really quite illustrious. The gist of it is that my sister and I were separated in our youth and only really reconnected ten or so years ago.”

“What, like The Parent Trap?”

“Now, Emma,” Zelena says in a lilting tone, eyes gleaming with amusement. “Not every redhead should immediately draw comparison to Lindsay Lohan. I like to think I’m a little classier.”

“Yeah, well,” Emma mutters. “It’s what came to mind.” Zelena smirks, giving Emma the distinct sensation of a cat toying with a mouse.

“I don’t blame you. You _do_ spend most of your time around children.”

“Uh-huh,” Emma says, choosing to let the veiled jibe go whilst thinking _God, all I wanted was some cereal_.

“So you’re from a convent, are you?” asks Zelena.

“Yup,” she replies, taking a sip of her orange juice and trying to identify the nearest escape route.

“And what made you join?”

Emma purses her lips, then decides that honesty is the best policy in this situation. “Actually, they kinda took me in at first. I was kinda young - like, just turned twenty-one young, and I was living rough for a while. It was, uh, a really bad night, so they took me in.” She looks away, embarrassed, already regretting sharing so much of herself with someone who’s essentially a complete stranger. “And, I mean, a free warm bed and food. Why not, right?”

“Right,” Zelena says carefully. “But you were training to be a nun.”

“I mean, yeah.”

“Interesting.”

“Very boring, actually. A lot of the same old, same old.”

“No, I’m just surprised Regina hired you.”

Emma frowns. “Really?”

“Mm. She isn’t exactly...the religious type.”

“Well, yeah, I noticed,” Emma says, words tinged with a slight fondness as she remembers Captain Mills’ firm objections to grace at dinner.

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

Emma shrugs. “Why should it?”

“I mean, apart from the fact that she’s gay as bloody Christmas?”

An unfortunate time for Emma to be taking another drink from her orange juice; it ends up going up her nose. “Wait, _what_?” she sputters after several minutes of choking observed by a slightly entertained, mostly disgusted Zelena.

“My sister,” Zelena says, “is homosexual. Well, bisexual, actually.”

“Your sister,” Emma repeats, still recovering from her near-asphyxiation by orange juice. “As in, Captain Mills.”

“The one and only,” Zelena confirms pleasantly. “Come on, darling. All the signs are there. It’s not as though she tries to hide it.”

“I didn’t even know there _were_ signs,” Emma protests, still reeling a little from the novelty of the information.

“Ah, yeah. Convent. Nun. Forgot. You don’t seem very much like the nun type, you know?”

“So I’ve been told,” Emma says.

“At any rate, there are signs,” Zelena informs her. Then, curiously, she pauses to look Emma up and down, and breaks out into a smirk. “There are _definitely_ signs.”

Emma glances down at her flannel shirt and jeans, feels her brow furrow in confusion upon seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “Uh, okay?”

“Aunt Zelena!” comes Elsa’s voice from another room. “Come show Mulan your card trick, she doesn’t believe you can do it!”

Upon hearing her niece’s voice, Zelena’s face breaks out into what Emma thinks is the first genuine smile she’s seen on her since her arrival. “Coming, sweetheart,” she calls. “Pleasure talking to you, Emma Swan,” she says to Emma, before sweeping out.

The exit of one Mills sister seems to indicate the entrance of another; Emma’s just barely placed a spoon into her cereal when Captain Mills comes in, clearly looking for something as she starts opening and shutting cupboard doors. For some stupid reason, Emma feels herself freeze where she stands. Captain Mills stops after a moment and looks at her.

“Good morning,” she says.

“Good morning,” Emma says back. Her mind is thinking, _gay as bloody Christmas_.

“Nutritious breakfast choice,” observes the Captain with a nod at Emma’s Lucky Charms, which are actually Anna’s Lucky Charms. She feels herself bridle slightly at the words, before catching sight of the upward curve of Captain Mills’ lips and the crinkles around her eyes, and realising she’s being teased. A smile slips onto her face before she can stop it.

“Yeah,” she says. “I, uh, figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

“And I’m expected to believe that you’ve _ever_ tried to ‘beat’ the children in regards to regulating their diets?” inquires the Captain, returning to her search through the various cupboards above and below the kitchen counter.

“Uh, yes?” Emma replies uncertainly.

“Mm…”

“Hey, I’m not a _totally_ bad influence on them, you know.”

“Not a totally bad influence,” Captain Mills agrees, shooting Emma an amused glance. “Have you seen Roland’s Chuggington cup? He refuses to drink his juice this morning unless that’s what it’s in.”

“Uh, yeah, I think it’s still in the dishwasher. The stuff in there is clean, though.”

“Thanks,” says the Captain, extracting the aforementioned cup from the dishwasher. “Right. I should go serve His Royal Highness his breakfast. See you later.”

“Yeah,” Emma says absently, caught entirely off-guard by the domesticity of the moment. It’s been a week since their Major Hallway Showdown (featuring Subsequent Apology), but she’s finding it hard to adjust to things like the Captain talking to her like she’s an actual other person in the house. And calling her Emma. And sometimes, like, smiling at her. She’s still not one hundred percent sure that she hasn’t stepped into some kind of parallel universe. Emma watches the Captain leave, feels their shoulders brush just slightly as she does so, smells fabric softener and something else she can’t quite place. She feels light-headed.

This is the precise moment when Realisations Two and Three (gay, gay for Captain Mills) set in, bringing with them Realisation Three Point Five (totally, totally screwed).

 

Mal Drake is very beautiful, and very scary. This is Emma’s first impression of the woman, and after a week and a half, she can’t say it’s really changed, though she’s been perfectly polite. It’s the edge to everything, the slight danger that makes Emma half want to pick a fight with her and half run away. It doesn’t help that the children don’t like her either, and are making no secret of it.

Dinner has been very awkward recently.

“I was thinking we could go to the park tomorrow,” Captain Mills says one evening over chicken pie. Emma hasn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to the conversation so far because of how it good it tastes, olives and paprika and roasted peppers all bursting into flavour in her mouth. Also, she’s not hugely good with spice, so she has to keep matching every two bites for a sip of water. Henry is looking at her with a mocking curve to his mouth; she narrows her eyes back in a way that she hopes communicates _Stop laughing at me, you little shit_.

“Who?” Mulan asks.

“Well,” the Captain says, hesitant. “The seven of you, and Mal and I.”

“What about Auntie Zelena?” Anna pipes up from the other side of the table. Captain Mills’ expression takes on a slightly discomforted look, and Zelena steps in smoothly.

“Not tomorrow, darling, I’m sorry,” she says. “A little too much work.”

“And Emma?”

“Hm?” Emma lets out, blinking in surprise. “Uh…” She glances at Captain Mills. “I, uh, have work too?”

“This _is_ your work,” Mulan points out, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Well, yeah,” she admits, because yep, it’s a pretty strong point for the woman to make. “That’s true. But, tomorrow, I, uh -”

“Is her day off,” Captain Mills finishes. “It’s Miss - it’s Emma’s day off. She’s been with you all this time I’ve been away, don’t you think she should have a bit of a break?”

There is a moment of drawn out silence.

“I have homework,” Ruby announces suddenly. “College apps and stuff, too. Sorry, Regina.”

Emma’s stomach begins to sink at the slightly crestfallen expression on Captain Mills’ face. She knows what’s coming. Soon enough, the others chime in with their own excuses.

“I’ve got a quiz on Monday.”

“I’m working on a group project.”

“I’ve already made plans with Violet, sorry, Mom.”

“Well,” says the Captain carefully. She looks very composed, but is making determined eye contact with the pie on her plate and not looking at anyone else around the table. “It looks like it’ll just be Anna, Belle and Roland with us, then.”

“It’s _cold_ , Mom,” Anna protests.

Another aching pause. “Never mind,” Captain Mills murmurs. “It was - a suggestion. Maybe another time.”

The rest of dinner is devoid of any interesting conversation, being mostly made up of attempts at it from Zelena and Emma that fall horrifyingly flat. Mal tries to help at first, but seems to quickly realise that most contributions from her are resented by the older children, and ceases from speaking accordingly. Captain Mills is silent. At one point, Emma looks up to meet Ruby’s eyes, and sees a distinctly guilty look in them. But, Emma realises as the children all eventually excuse themselves and the Captain leaves the table, shrugging Zelena’s comforting hand off of her shoulder without a word, the damage has already been done.

Later that evening, Henry is the only one left downstairs, playing ceaselessly at the piano. Ever since his mother has come home he barely leaves it, seemingly hellbent on getting in the practice he’s missed out on over the years. She taps softly at the door, waits for the music to stop before poking her head around the door.

“Hen,” she says. “You have any idea where your mom is?”

Henry shrugs, though his entire face seems to droop downwards at the mention of her. Ruby isn’t the only one suffering from some guilt, it seems. “I think her study.”

“Okay. Is Mal with her? Or Zelena?”

“They both went to bed,” Henry says. “Sometimes Mom needs, uh, alone time.”

 _Alone time_ sounds like it should be capitalised, _Alone Time_ , and Henry says it so sadly that Emma immediately resolves to go and find Captain Mills, even though most of the rational parts of her brain are telling her that this is totally a thing she shouldn’t do.

“Okay,” she says to Henry. “I see.” She hesitates for a moment, before making her way into the room and placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to upset her,” he whispers into the hush of the living room, the only other sound coming from the steady ticking of the grandfather clock. “I just - we don’t like Mal. And sometimes Mom just - she keeps _pushing_ for us to like her, and we don’t even know how long she's staying for, and…”

“Hey, kid,” Emma says soothingly. “Hey. It’s okay.”

Henry’s jaw is stiffly set, and she thinks for one terrifying moment that he might burst into tears. Instead, he stands and slides his arms around her waist. Emma goes rigid for a brief moment, surprised at the contact, but eventually relaxes, feeling her hand coming up to brush over his hair of its own accord.

“Sometimes Mom says stuff and we say stuff and we both try to say stuff so loud that we don’t hear each other,” he mumbles, the words crammed into the wool of Emma’s sweater.

“I know, Henry,” Emma sighs, resting her hand on the back of his neck. “And that’s - it’s not anyone’s fault. It’s what people do all the time.”

“Are you going to go check if she’s okay?”

Emma pauses, then says: “Yeah. I - I don’t know if she’ll want to _see_ me, but…”

Henry looks up at her. “She likes you,” he says seriously, and Emma’s traitorous heart beats a little faster, unbidden. “Because you’re not scared of her. Most grown-ups are scared of Mom.”

Emma can’t keep from letting out a slight laugh through her nose. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared of your mom at times, kid -”

“You’re not really,” he interrupts. His face scrunches up, as though he’s debating what to say next. Eventually, he settles on: “Go speak to her, please?”

As if Emma’s stupid idea needed any further cementing. “Okay,” she says. “Bedtime for you, though.”

Surprisingly - or not, considering the conversation that’s just taken place - Henry obeys with little protest, taking his music from the stand on the inside of the piano lid and organising it into a neater pile before closing the lid gently.

“Good night,” he says, eyes dark with sadness. He looks so much like his mother in that moment that Emma feels a shiver in her fingers.

“Night,” she replies, voice soft. “Henry - don’t take it on yourself. These things happen.”

He doesn’t answer, only disappears out of the room and up the stairs. Emma sighs to herself, presses fingers briefly to her forehead before venturing out into the darkened hallway towards Captain Mills’ study, where there is light visible from under the door. She gathers up her courage and knocks.

“Captain Mills?”

Silence that seems to last forever, then: “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Emma says, then adds a little stupidly: “Emma.”

“Ah,” comes the Captain’s voice from inside. It sounds oddly contorted, like there’s something she’s holding back, and as Emma listens more carefully she becomes acutely aware of the breaths that she’s taking on the other side of the door, uneven and shaky. “Could you - could you come back another time, Emma?”

“I came to check if you were okay,” Emma says, because it’s all she can think to say. “Are you?”

“ _Fine_ ,” comes the terse response. “I really - I - you -”  the sentence deteriorates and becomes entirely incoherent; Emma can feel her heart pounding in her ears in response.

“I’m coming in,” she says firmly as she pushes the door open. They’ve been here before, the study and Emma’s worry and Captain Mills’ - Captain Mills’ -

“Captain Mills,” Emma lets out, feeling urgency burn hard and fast in her bones. She feels torn between lunging forward and keeping her distance, watching the Captain with back to her and her fingers curled around the edge of the desk and the shaking, shaking, shaking.

“ _Go_ -” she lets out, quietly but through clenched teeth. Her voice is taut and stretched thin like the skin over her knuckles.  

“Captain -”

“ _Go_!”

“I’m not -”

“Are you _incapable_ of - _God_ \- _fuck_ -”

Emma feels the urgency be replaced with cool fear upon hearing the expletive combined with Captain Mills’ breathing speeding up and becoming even more irregular. She circles the desk to face her, sees glazed eyes set in a pale face.

“Hey -” she says, trying to sound far calmer than she feels. “Hey, Captain - hey -” She bites her lip, cycles through things to say that might help, settles on - “Count with me. We’re gonna breathe and then we’re gonna count. Okay?”

No answer, the breathing still off and the fingers pure white against the wood of the desk. Emma tamps down on her panic.

“Okay. That’s what we’re gonna do. Counting and breathing. One. Two. Look, I’m breathing with you. One. Two. Three. Still breathing. Come on. Get through this. Four. Five.”

There’s still a washed out look in the Captain’s eyes, like she’s not even with Emma in the room. But they get to seven and her breathing is evening out. She swallows and keeps counting aloud.

“Come on,” she repeats. “You got it.”

Long moments pass, and Emma can’t stop looking at the tremors in Captain Mills’ arms, swallows thickly at the way she seems stuck there. Eventually, she ventures: “Sit down. Do you want to sit down?”

No answer. She moves back around the desk. “I’m sitting down,” she says, words soft but clear. “Sit down with me. I’m just gonna take your arm, okay?”

No answer again, but when Emma ventures to brush her fingers against the Captain’s arm, there’s no immediate objection. She uses her arm to pull her down until they’re both sat on the floor with their backs against the desk, shoulders pressing up against each other as they sit in silence.

Emma doesn’t know how long it is until Captain Mills speaks.

“I’m sorry,” she says hoarsely, eyes fixed ahead. Emma turns to face her, feels her heart ache with the pain she can see.

“No,” Emma says. “No apologies.” She watches the Captain swallow and start to play with her own hands, still shaking slightly.

“I spent...a long time in military service,” she says. “There are...still some marks left.”

“You don’t need to explain it,” Emma tells her. “Captain -” she cuts herself off at the way Captain Mills stiffens slightly.

“Please don’t,” she edges out. “Please, I -” she stops, swallows again. “Regina. Regina. I would prefer…”

“I’m sorry,” Emma says, the words coming out a whisper.

“ _You’re_ sorry,” Captain Mills replies ruefully. “I have...doubtless put a damper on your evening, Emma.”

“It’s not like that,” she says. “You know it isn’t.” She hesitates, then adds: “I was coming to check on you, anyway.”

Regina looks at her. “One of the children put you up to it, no doubt.”

“No. Yes.” Emma bites her lip. “A little bit of both. I was going to, but then Henry said you needed alone time - so I wasn’t going to - then he asked me to. So, uh…”

“My son,” Regina says with a sigh, “is a chronic worrier.”

“He’s your _son_ ,” Emma says. “You’re his mom. Of course he’s going to worry. And they all feel guilty, anyway, after that shit they pulled at dinner -”

“Yes,” she says, with a smile that seems too sad to be genuine. “I should have known better than to - suggest an outing with Mal. But I guess I thought…” Her face takes on a slightly harder expression, almost imperceptibly. “At any rate. It’s done now.”

“Captain - Regina -”

“Thank you,” Regina says, the words quiet, like she’s scared to even say them out loud. “I...usually I just - or Ruby, if she’s there, she…” she trails off, takes a breath. “I didn’t intend for you to find me in this state -”

“Stop,” Emma breathes out, turning slightly so she’s facing Regina directly. “You don’t need to _thank_ me for just, I don’t know - for being a decent _person_. And you don’t need to apologise for - for something you can’t control. I’m glad I _did_ check on you.”

Regina stares at her for a long moment, then opens her mouth to say something, but the words are stymied by the calm chiming of the clock in the corner of the room, which they both twist to look at.

“It’s late,” she says, standing. Emma follows suit. “I’m sorry to have kept you up.”

She feels her brow furrow into a deep frown. “You didn’t.”

“I -”

“You really didn’t,” Emma interrupts emphatically. She feels an overwhelming urge to take the Captain’s hands in hers, and knows she should leave before her body initiates the contact of its own volition. “I promise. I’ll...I’m gonna go now. Good night, Captain.”

“Good night,” says the Captain in response. Emma’s already turned and is halfway to the door when she says, “Emma?”

“Yeah?”

Her face crumples slightly with tentativeness, but Captain Mills says, eventually, “I meant it. Regina - Regina is fine. Instead of…”

Emma can’t keep the smile from her face. “Okay,” she says simply, even with the warm feeling curling its way up through her lungs. “Good night, Regina.”

 

After that, things are slightly different. Regina Mills, Emma realises, is someone who she kind of thought she had figured out. A little - or a lot - bitchy, utterly disciplined, mostly confident, very good at the sarcastic comments under the breath thing. Loves her kids, obviously, also - has trouble showing it properly, especially with the older ones. And there’s the whole PTSD thing, and the whole ‘adopted seven children alone’ thing, which most people do _not_ do.

Even so, she feels like she has a grasp on the basics and at least some of the nuances. But in the run-up to Thanksgiving, Emma comes to understand that actually, she’s totally wrong, because there’s a shit-ton of things she had no idea about, like how Regina’s some kind of chemistry whiz (but is also an avid reader - annoying, when people are good at everything like that), and she knows the _Fairly Odd Parents_ theme tune off by heart and will gladly sing along to it with Belle on request, and one of her favourite things to do when Ruby’s girlfriend comes over is make several sexual innuendos over the course of the evening. Because Regina Mills is _funny_ . Honest to God, _my stomach is actually kinda hurting from laughing at your jokes_ funny.

“Anna has become rather fixated on watching Chuggington with Roland whenever it comes on recently,” she comments once to Emma on the couch as the two children in question watch the television avidly.

“Oh,” Emma says, looking up from her book. She hasn’t really been concentrating on the television because she’s doing this thing where she’s reconnecting with the world after being in a convent for several years, and also becoming more cultured. Henry is teaching her how to play the piano and she’s playing chess with Mulan a lot lately, so it’s going well so far, she thinks. “I mean…”

“I think she has a crush on Eddie,” Regina murmurs, not removing her eyes from the screen. Emma coughs a little with surprise.

“He’s an _animated_ _fictional character_ ,” she says in response, slightly hushed so as not to disturb the kids.

“Mm,” Regina lets out in response with a slight smirk, just as Eddie himself comes on-screen. “Kind of a spice, though. I mean, when you get past the whole ‘talks to trains’ thing. I think the adult subtext here is that all the humans are delusional.”

Emma can’t help the loud laugh that she lets out at this last comment, and just laughs harder when the ridiculousness sets in, ends up doubled over on the couch, the glint in Regina’s eyes and the smirk on her face too amusing to handle all at once. Roland and Anna _ssh!_ her emphatically, but Regina is looking at her with a suddenly far softer smile, as though she can’t quite believe that Emma is even finding her funny. And Emma starts to find her company near-addictive. There’s something about this Regina - not new, just suddenly visible - that she wants to drink in, consume until she’s had her fill. Emma had a family in the abbey, but not _friends_ , not really, and she’d realised when she’d first started spending time with the children how starved she was of company, but this is different. Regina is intelligent and sharp and even more than all that, she always seems to be thinking in the same way as Emma. It’s overwhelming and she doesn’t know what to do with any of it so she just ends up being her characteristic self and diving in headfirst.

“Checkmate,” Mulan says. Emma blinks at the board with surprise.

“Hey, what?” she says.

“You left yourself wide open,” she replies with a rare grin. “Your king is easily cornered.”

“No way,” Emma protests. “I think you’re cheating.”

“Really,” Mulan says flatly, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, _really_ ,” she says. Across the living room, Belle and Regina are reading a book together, alternating chapters, Ruby tapping away at her laptop beside them and doing her best to ignore Maleficent, who’s sat awkwardly between the two parties and alternating between attempting halted conversation and skimming through some papers that she’s brought with her, scribbling on them at random intervals. As Elsa had informed Emma with a hint of bitterness a few days ago, Maleficent runs a rather large publishing house in New York City. A lot of her life is filled with paper.

“And how would I be cheating?”

“You beat me so easily,” Emma laments, rubbing at her face. “Like, we literally started playing about ten minutes ago.”

This elicits a snort from Ruby on the couch. Emma turns to offer her a glare, before looking back to Mulan.

“Besides,” she continues, now with a smug grin. “You’ve forgotten something.”

“I don’t think I have, Emma.”

“Sure you have. It might _look_ like you’ve got my king cornered…”

“Because I _have_ got your king cornered…”

“But actually, before we started playing, my pawns and my knights revolted and instituted a representative democracy. So actually, sure, you can totally kill the puppet ruler that was the only lasting relic of traditional tyranny -”

“Not this again,” Mulan mutters.

“Because _I_ at least can sleep easy knowing that I’m running a free country in the Land of the Black Chess-pieces,” Emma finishes triumphantly. “ _Not_ sure I can say the same for _you_ , kiddo.”

“Don’t call me that,” Mulan tells her with an eye-roll. “I don’t think you’ve actually gotten the point of chess yet.”

“What makes you say that?” Emma asks, assuming an entirely innocent expression.

“Every time I beat you - which is every time we play - you come up with, like, a new thing. Like last night when you turned your pawns into bishops -”

“They found Jesus.”

“Or the time before, when you put your pieces back onto the board when I went to get us hot chocolate.”

“They figured out how to sneak into your royal palace through an underground passage.”

“Or when you pretend they actually have thoughts and feelings.”

“I don’t see why they can’t achieve social mobility too. It’s America.”

“Not when the pawns become _knights_.”

“If they work hard, they can achieve their dreams. And they work hard.”

“Whatever,” Mulan says, rolling her eyes again. “You’re just a cheater.”

“I prefer ‘player with imagination’,” Emma says, grinning again and nudging Mulan’s foot under the table. “Also, at least you actually win on strategy.”

Mulan looks at her, hints of a smile in her face. “And at least _you_ can admit it,” she says, a little haughtily.

“I’m tactical in my own ways,” Emma tells her with a wink. “Tomorrow night we can play Cheater’s Chess.”

“You mean _you_ can play chess how you _always_ play chess.”

“ _But_ you can play along with me. None of that ‘sticking to the rules’ crap.”

“Miss Swan,” admonishes Regina. Belle has dozed off against her, the side of her cheek squished into her chest and both of them squeezed into the armchair.

“Sorry,” Emma says, largely unrepentant, smile only growing. She turns back to Mulan, who has been eyeing the exchange with a bizarre mixture of suspicion and (kind of? maybe?) fond exasperation. “How about it? Tomorrow night?”

“Sure, if I don’t have too much homework,” Mulan says, scooping up the chess pieces off the board.

“Sick,” Emma says. “Hey, that’s a thing the cool kids say, right?”

“I don’t think the _cool kids_ call themselves cool kids,” Ruby says.

“Eh, whatever,” Emma twists around to tell her, eyes landing upon Regina, who is biting her lip with light dancing in her eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” Regina says, clearly lying.

“It’s not very good grace to mock a nun,” Emma sniffs. “We’re one of the most vulnerable and easily attacked groups in society - Ruby, you laugh, but there’s a Wikipedia page on it, _so_.”

“A nun?” inquires Maleficent. The good mood of the room seems to evaporate suddenly, and Emma looks at her a little nervously.

“Oh,” she says. “Yeah. I mean, I was at the abbey across the state before I came here.”

“And you decided to leave?” she asks, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow. Emma swallows and wishes Regina had slightly less intimidating friends. Or at least, didn’t invite her intimidating friends to stay.

“Uh, sort of. This is kind of, like, experience?” she says, entirely aware that she is conjuring up complete fabrication on the spot. “With the real world? Before I decide if, you know, I’m really up for devoting my life to God, and all that...stuff.”

“I didn’t know nuns do that.” The woman is looking at Emma like she knows she’s lying. She doesn’t know she’s lying, does she? Maybe she does. Maybe she’s a spy? She could totally be a spy. Her hair is done perfectly at literally all times of the day. She could step on Emma in those heels she wears. Those are spy things, right?

“It’s a voluntary thing,” she manages.

“Oh. I see,” Maleficent says, although the slight furrow in her brow implies otherwise. “Well...I guess you learn something new every day.”

Emma attempts a laugh. “Yep,” she replies, the word pitched a little too high. “Hey, Mulan - how about I put the chessboard away? You must have stuff to do, like, uh...stuff.” Before the girl can even respond, she’s gathering up the remainder of the pieces along with the board and standing up.

“I should probably go to sleep,” she says, acutely aware of the strange looks she’s getting from everyone in the room and thus electing to make direct eye contact with the carpet below her feet. “Early start tomorrow with, you know, Roland, he loves getting up at the a - the crack of dawn...cool.”

Emma’s pretty sure she drops about five pawns on the way out, but she can’t quite contain her need to escape the living room - with Maleficent and her perfect eyebrows and sculpted features and questions about the abbey, which she hasn’t even thought about properly in _weeks_ \- for long enough to do anything about it. Instead, she bolts up into her room, has kind of a mini breakdown, and doesn’t emerge again until it’s half past twelve at night, she can’t withstand her craving for ice cream any longer, and she’s reasonably sure that there won’t be anyone left downstairs.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Emma is so fixated on the Ben and Jerry’s that she’s on a mission to grab and run away with as swiftly as possible that she barely hears the murmurs resounding downstairs, and even when she registers them she can’t quite pin down which room they’re coming from, and ends up figuring that she might as well go into the kitchen anyway, since she’s made it all the way down. This is how she manages to walk into a scene that she has no business walking into; that is, Mal Drake perched on the kitchen counter furthest away from the door, legs wound the waist of Captain Regina Mills, who is kissing up her neck.

“Oh my God,” she blurts out, already backing away. “I am - I am _so_ sorry -”

At the sound of her voice, Regina spins around so quickly that she ends up backing directly into the other counter nearby with a loud and ungraceful _thunk_. Her face takes on an expression of pure terror. Maleficent, by contrast, seems incredibly calm, merely crossing her legs at the ankle and smirking. There doesn’t seem to be too much clothing displaced, only Emma’s pretty sure that Mal had been wearing stockings earlier that night and - yep, there they are, on the floor two feet away. Great, Emma thinks. Absolutely great. She can never enter this kitchen ever again in her whole life, ever.

“Emma,” Regina says, and her voice is husky and her hair is completely mussed and _fuck_ , if Emma isn’t completely screwed. “We were just…” Her cheeks have taken on a distinct flush of embarrassment that Emma imagines is mirrored on her own face. “...talking,” she finishes weakly. Mal snorts quietly at this, and Emma catches sight of Regina’s hand moving sideways to pinch at her thigh.

“Right,” she says, voice shaking slightly. “I’m sorry, I -” she stops and swallows. “This has been...really, _really_ awkward, so I’m just gonna...go. Have a - good night?” The tail end of the phrase goes so high in Emma’s register that it ends up sounding more like a question.

“You too,” returns Regina, still blushing deeply.

Emma hightails it out of the kitchen and spends the rest of the night willing the heat in her cheeks and certain other parts of her body to subside. It doesn’t really work.

 

“No chess partner today?” Regina asks her. It’s been three days since the latest in her series of Notable Interactions with Captain Mills (which have become so rom-com-ish that she’s half considering writing them all down and selling them to make a movie), and Emma’s been doing a pretty sterling job of avoiding her like the plague up ‘til now. She coughs in surprise.

“No,” she says in reply to the other woman’s question, the word a little lacklustre. “Mulan has a big project due tomorrow, so…”

“I see,” Regina says. A pause, then she sits opposite. “Black or white?”

Emma blinks. “Huh?”

“I’ll let you have white this time,” she continues, seemingly unperturbed by Emma’s slightly dazed response. “Give you a head start.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll lose either way,” Emma mumbles, watching as Regina clears the pieces (up until two seconds ago, she had been playing with herself, which wasn’t exactly engaging, but since the kids are all in their rooms, she doesn’t have much else to do).

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she replies, setting the pieces out with the white ones on Emma’s side. “Mulan is something of a tactical genius.”

“I kinda figured.”

“It’s something I’m almost tempted to say she learnt from my mother,” Regina says a little too lightly, and Emma presses her lips together to keep a noise of surprise from emerging. “Though since she was only about two when she died, I doubt that’s the case.”

“Ah,” Emma says, hoping to keep her tone as neutral as possible. “So you adopted her when your mom…”

“Fostered, then adopted,” Regina corrects. “Your move.”

Emma absently moves a pawn forward two spaces, mind still skimming over questions it might be permissable to ask. “And then, the others…?”

Regina looks up with a sly smile almost showing on her face. “Miss Swan, you’re what Henry would call a _bad snooper_.”

She lets out a laugh that’s half a noise of surprise. “Uh, yeah, I know. He’s kinda...called me that before.”

“And he hasn’t taught you yet how to become a good snooper?” Regina asks, raising her eyebrows.

“Not really.” Emma shrugs. “I mean, even if he did, I don’t think I’d ever manage to pick it up. Subtlety isn’t exactly my...thing.”

“I’ve noticed,” she says dryly in response. “To answer your rather vague question in more specific terms, Mulan and Henry were the only children I ever fully intended to adopt. The others...came upon me in a variety of ways, mostly by circumstance. There are very few people in Storybrooke who are licensed to be foster parents.” She pauses for a moment, smiles wryly, more to herself than to Emma. “And as things go, it isn’t the worst thing to do with your life.”

“No,” Emma manages to get out, voice slightly hoarse with phrases she can’t quite articulate. “It isn’t.” A pause as they exchange moves, before she says: “So are all of them adopted?”

“Ruby and Belle are still fostered,” Regina says. “They both only came to me a few years ago. Belle’s father is currently in a psychiatric hospital and Ruby’s parents…” She pauses briefly, then says: “Did not take particularly well to their daughter’s sexual orientation.”

“Oh,” is all Emma can say. “I…”

“Her case is quite isolated,” she says, doing the thing again where she looks at the chessboard studiously and nowhere else. “Storybrooke isn’t exactly progressive, but it’s not backwards, either. I already had six children in my home, but couldn’t quite refuse her.” She halts briefly, then continues, “For reasons I’m sure you can imagine, after our _delightful_ encounter in the kitchen the other night. Your move.”

“Ah,” Emma lets out, not moving any of her pieces as she feels the embarrassment of that night come flooding back and also wonders when exactly she’s going to stop talking in monosyllables.

“I realise you’ve been avoiding me,” Regina tells her quietly, looking up for the first time. “What Mal and I were doing was...entirely inappropriate. Obviously we didn’t think that anyone was still awake, but -”

“No, I mean - I walked in on you, so -”

“- it doesn’t mean we should have -”

“Like, seriously, it was past midnight, and I should have, I don’t know, heard -”

“At any rate,” Regina cuts off both of their rambling. “I apologise if I made you uncomfortable.”

Emma takes this moment to move her knight into a rather random position, realising belatedly that she’s left it completely open for capture by Regina’s bishop. “You didn’t,” she said eventually. “I mean, okay, you kind of did, but it wasn’t _you_ , or - what you were doing, or anything, it was just, you know, the situation.”

“Yes,” Regina says, moving her bishop accordingly. “That was a really stupid move you just made.”

“I’m not good at multi-tasking,” Emma says, pushing forward her pawn. “I don’t want you to think that I - think - anything, about you, or...or Mal, or Ruby - because of, like, where I…”

“Emma,” she interrupts. “I didn’t assume anything about that. Considering you’ve lived with Ruby for several months now and anyone with eyes can see that the two of you adore each other, I don’t think there’s much else to say on the matter. And although it wasn’t the most ideal way for you to find out about…”

“I knew before,” she blurts out. “Before, like, that night.”

“Did you,” Regina says.

“Yeah, I…” Emma trails off and sighs. “Zelena told me. Well, I think she kind of thought I knew. She said there are obvious signs.”

“Did she,” Regina says.

“I don’t - think she meant anything by it -”

“Oh, no, I don’t think she did. My sister never does, really.” Regina’s eyes return to the chessboard, and she ends up taking Emma’s pawn with hers. “Another slightly foolish move. Maybe I overestimated you.”

“Hey,” Emma says, offended. “I’m still a novice.”

“Isn’t there meant to be such a thing as beginner’s luck?” Regina teases in response.

“If you stop _distracting_ me, we might see.”

“Alright,” she drawls, voice dropping slightly in a way that makes Emma swallow hard. “No more distractions, Swan. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

As it turns out, Emma really doesn’t have much. She manages to capture a few of Regina’s pawns, a bishop, and, in a moment of inspired brilliance (or, more likely, a slight slip-up from the other side), her queen, but otherwise, her king ends up stuck in checkmate pretty quickly.

“I call unfair disadvantage,” Emma groans. “You’re a _military captain_. Strategy is, like, your middle name.”

“Excuses,” Regina says with a smirk. “Rematch?”

“No thanks,” she mutters in response. “The first time was humiliating enough.”

“You weren’t all bad,” she tries to say in as appeasing a tone as possible, though she’s still grinning a little smugly, so the overall effect is slightly oxymoronic. “You did capture my queen.”

“Yeah,” Emma sighs, a little forlornly. “That’s about as far as I got, though. Thanks anyway.”

Regina blinks, confused. “For what?”

Now Emma is also confused. “For playing with me? I mean, I’m sure you had way better things to do, so…”

“Emma,” Regina says carefully, eyeing her. “I wanted to play with you. There was no obligation.”

“Oh,” Emma says. “I...okay.”

“Okay.” Regina stands up with a smile. “I should probably get started on dinner.”

Emma finds herself entirely unwilling to part from her. The feeling of reluctance sets off another of panic in her stomach, but is too much to resist. “Okay,” she says. “Do you - uh, do you need help, or anything?”

“Relatively simple tonight, so I should be fine,” Regina says, but she’s smiling, she’s smiling, and Emma cannot stop wanting. “Just lasagne. I’ll try ease off on the chilli flakes this time.”

Emma flushes a little at Regina’s implication. “I’m not - it’s not that bad.”

“No,” Regina agrees, though her smile belies the words. “But what kind of chef would I be if I didn’t cater to all my patrons’ needs?”

“Whatever,” Emma mutters. Regina lets out a sudden, unexpected laugh, and she looks up at her, a little delighted, feeling the sound warm her from the inside out.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, before exiting and leaving Emma slightly dazed in her wake.

 

Emma’s had one Thanksgiving dinner before, when she was fourteen, and it was absolutely nothing like the movies. Her foster mom drank copious amounts of alcohol of all varieties and subsequently spent a lot of time in the bathroom, and her foster dad flitted nervously around the house, unsure of how to do anything. It ended with her and Mark - foster brother, although they’d never really gotten to that stage of, well, anything, really - sitting awkwardly on the couch and watching the third Harry Potter movie on ABC, eating the neighbours’ turkey leftovers and slightly charred potatoes off greasy paper plates in their laps. It was a masterclass in reasons not to set your expectations too high, and she supposes that’s why Thanksgiving in the Mills household is, amongst other things, thoroughly arresting.

“I assume you all know your duties for today,” Regina says formally in the kitchen as the children buzz around to get their breakfast ready. A series of affirmative responses chorus around the space; Emma, who is halfway through drizzling honey into Roland’s Weetabix, looks up in confusion.

“Uh, duties?”

“On the board,” Regina says, nodding at the whiteboard perched in pride of place on the wall. On it, instead of the children’s usual commitments of the week, is a schedule for the day, mapped out carefully in Regina’s neat, elegant script. Under her name is written: **_9.00AM - 12.00PM:_ ** _Breakfast and Flower-picking with Roland,_ **_12.00PM-12.30PM:_ ** _Break,_ **_12.30PM-2.00PM_ ** _, Potato Duty with Ruby and Mrs. Lucas,_ **_2.00PM-2.30PM:_ ** _Break/Odd Jobs,_ **_2.30PM-4.30PM:_ ** _Chopping Duty with Henry and Zelena,_ **_4.30PM-5.30PM:_ ** _Last-minute jobs_. Emma looks at everyone else’s names, which have their own similar schedules underneath them, and realises belatedly that she has walked into a full-scale military operation.

“Oh, wow,” she lets out before she can stop herself. Beside her, Zelena snorts.

“You can say that again,” she mutters.

“Emma!” Roland shouts delightedly from his place perched on Maleficent’s hip. “We’re gonna pick pretty flowers! For the tables!”

Since they are nearing the end of November, Emma doubts that many pretty flowers will be picked, and suspects that ‘flower-picking’ is actually a devious Captain Mills-patented scheme employed every year to keep Roland away from the kitchen. However, she chooses wisely to overlook this, and say instead: “You got it, bud.”

“Right,” Regina announces, clapping her hands together once and looking every inch the Air Force captain she is. “If you’re not in the kitchen for the first block, scram. I’ll see you all at dinner. Make it a good day.”

Another chorus of replies, then Roland is jumping down out of Maleficent’s arms and towards Emma.

“Flowers!” he cries.

“Breakfast first,” she tells him firmly. “Then flowers.”

 _9.00AM - 12.00PM: Breakfast and Flower-picking with Roland._ Mostly fine, nothing to report. However, Emma has to spend a rather prolonged length of time in the park freezing her ass off before Roland can be convinced that going to Game of Thorns is a more feasible option, and that no, tulips are not in season. She guesses this is the point, and her suspicions are confirmed when they return and Henry opens the door to their wind-swept hair and white-cold faces and smiles knowingly.

 _12.00PM-12.30PM: Break._ Mostly useless, since Emma can’t get lunch because Mrs. Lucas and Regina have effectively barricaded the kitchen. She ends up watching _Little Einsteins_ with Anna and Maleficent, which isn’t nearly as terrible as it could be, mostly because Emma thinks _Hungarian Dance_ by Brahms is an absolute tune and Maleficent agrees.

 _12.30PM-2.00PM, Potato Duty with Ruby and Mrs. Lucas._ Regina isn’t paying any of them much attention as she makes the pumpkin pie at high speed, and Mrs. Lucas ends up doing most of the work, since Ruby and Emma get carried away with another one of their ‘Way More Entertaining Than They Sound’ Games, this time inventing personalities for their potatoes as they peel them and having them interact by putting on silly high-pitched voices. Mrs. Lucas mutters under her breath about how all they’ve gained is two more five year-olds than they need in the kitchen, but Emma catches a fleeting smile on Regina’s face and it makes it worth it.

 _2.00PM-2.30PM, Break/Odd Jobs_. ‘Odd jobs’ turns into keeping the kids out of the Danger Zone, because Regina and Mrs. Lucas are now beginning to hit Peak Stress Levels, and anyone could become collateral damage if they’re not careful. Emma sets up a pillow fort in the living room with Elsa and pretends not to hear the kids when they call it the Regina Refuge.

 _2.30PM-4.30PM, Chopping Duty with Henry and Zelena_ . A largely entertaining two hours spent listening to Zelena and Regina snipe at each other and casting Henry looks of varying dismay and/or amusement. They end up developing a code: two blinks for _Oh, that was harsh_ , one wink for _Regina’s winning_ , and a cough for _Zelena’s winning_. Eventually, Regina says irritably whilst checking on the turkey and simultaneously stirring the cranberry sauce: “Henry, I’ve been an officer in the Air Force since before you were even conceived, so I don’t know what makes you think your language is a secret from anyone in this room.” Henry flushes but seems mostly amused, Emma bites her lip to keep from laughing, and Zelena smirks.

 _4.30PM-5.30PM, Last-minute jobs._ These involve dismantling the pillow fort and informing Roland repeatedly that just before the dinner that the entire household has been working on all day is not the ideal time to take a nap.

“I’m tired.”

“Not that I don’t believe you, pal, but you’re never normally tired around this time,” Emma says, crouching to his level.

Roland crosses his arms. “I am. Look.” He then proceeds to yawn very loudly, directly in Emma’s face. She rolls her eyes.

“Don’t you want some turkey?”

(Roland totally wants some turkey, because it’s been all he can talk about for the entire day. He seems to have a passion for stuffing.)

“No,” he says shortly.

“Roland…”

“ _No_!”

Cue the three Ts: tantrum, time-out, and tired. Emma feels very tired. Zelena finds her sat on the stairs where Roland had been positioned for his time-out a few minutes prior and grins a little.

“So how has your first Mills Thanksgiving been going?” she asks, like she already knows the answer, which Emma guesses she does.

“...interesting,” Emma says eventually after spending a few too many seconds searching for the correct adjective. Zelena snorts.

“Well, if ever you doubted my sister’s suitability for the military -”

“I never did,” she interjects before the woman’s even finished her sentence. Zelena eyes her curiously.

“- then after today you wouldn’t,” she finishes, tone wry. “The two of you seem to get on very well,” she comments after a second.

“I like Regina,” Emma says, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. This is an understatement and it seems Zelena knows it as well as Emma does.

“Good,” she says with an odd smile, not quite like any that Emma’s seen on her before. “That’s good.” A long pause, then she coughs and says, changing the subject with about as much subtlety as a gun: “At any rate. The military prep is worth it, for the dinner.”

“I kinda guessed,” Emma laughs, slightly relieved for the movement towards more familiar ground. “I mean, Regina’s an amazing cook, so…”

“Yes,” Zelena agrees, mouth twisting into another smile much like the last. “Amazing.”

Emma starts to open her mouth say something, a little unsure of what exactly (potentially ‘Why do you keep looking at me like that? Do I have a stain on my shirt? I thought I’d gotten all the Weetabix off this morning?’), but is interrupted by a call from further inside.

“Dinner’s ready!”

As though on cue, Emma’s stomach lets out a loud rumble. Zelena sniggers.

“Someone’s hungry,” she says, pushing off the bannister of the staircase she’d been leaning against and beginning to move towards the dining room. “Hurry up. The kids are animals and if you don’t get in there quick enough…”

This is all the encouragement that Emma needs, and she jumps down from the stairs to catch up with Zelena. Upon their entrance into the dining room, Regina looks up, clearly surprised to see the two of them enter together, but doesn’t say anything. Most of the children, as well Mrs. Lucas, are still filing in after them; eventually everyone manages to squeeze into a seat around the table, which, curiously, is covered in what looks like butcher paper.

“Right,” Regina says. “Everyone take a pen.”

As though by magic, she produces an assortment of markers, each one a different colour, and begins to pass them down. As Elsa and Mulan begin squabbling over colours, Emma leans towards Ruby on her left.

“Uh, what?” she mutters. Ruby grins.

“I keep forgetting this is your first Thanksgiving here,” she says, which Emma takes as a kind of compliment. “Basically, take a pen and on the paper write out what you’re thankful for. Or draw, if you want, Roland’s really into abstract images. We keep the paper every year. I think Regina has it all rolled up in her study, or something.”

“Oh,” Emma says. “That’s...really cool.”

“Yeah,” Ruby agrees. “We have to read them all out before we start though, so keep it PG.”

Emma lets out a squeak of outrage. “When have I _ever_ -”

“Emma, I saved you the red marker,” Belle says from her other side. Emma looks at her and smiles widely, all anger at Ruby promptly forgotten.

“Thanks,” she says, plucking the marker from Belle’s fingers. The girl smiles at her briefly before beginning to scribble onto the paper on the table in her own yellow marker.

“Hey!” Ruby says with an exaggerated pout, slipping slightly in her chair to nudge her sister’s leg with her foot from under the table. “The red marker’s mine!”

Belle smiles serenely. “You were being mean to Emma so you can get the brown marker this year,” she says, not looking up from her work.

Ruby pouts further - mostly real, this time - as Emma grins in triumph and turns to her section of the makeshift table. _THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR:_ , she writes in block capitals, before hesitating and adding _(Emma)_ in normal letters. She pauses and squints at the lettering in front of her. A hush has fallen on the table as each individual concentrates on their own writing, and Emma finds herself so incapable of words that she takes a leaf out of Roland’s book and starts drawing instead.

The hills come first, just wavy lines with diagonal ones on top signifying grass. Emma draws a crude sun and some clouds above it, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, eight stick figures of varying shapes and sizes, seven signifying the children and one for Mary Margaret, slightly to one side. She labels them as well as giving them all objects to make obvious who they are (Ruby gets a pair of Docs, Belle a book, Mary Margaret a cross, Henry a pen, and so on), then leans back and observes her handiwork. There’s a figure so blatantly missing that she doesn’t even feel that awkward adding her in, just next to Elsa and Anna, drawing an arrow and writing _Captain Mills_ . Emma writes underneath the whole piece: _The hills, the sun, the sky, God for being awesome, Mary Margaret for being just as awesome (hope that’s not blasphemous), The Mills family for: playing chess with me, teaching me piano even though I’m super bad at it, cooking food with less spice because I can’t handle spice, going on adventures with me in the Enchanted Forest, pushing me into leaves and sometimes getting me covered with dog poo, telling me fun Chemistry facts even when I haven’t asked for them, and other things (not necessarily in that order)._

It’s not exactly what Emma means, because what Emma means that she is insanely fond of the Mills children and she’s not a _part_ of their family but they’ve made her feel like she is and it’s created a chasm of yearning in her chest but also a distinct sense of significance, as though when she’s reading with Belle or listening to Henry’s new plot for his short story or paying attention to Ruby’s college application problems she matters, even slightly, even for just a bit. When they come to her place at the table she coughs and frowns and tries to find the words for what she means.

“I’m not - I haven’t - I don’t have a family,” she says, which isn’t the best opener, but it’s kind of what she’s started with, so she’s going to have to finish. “I mean, I was in the system, when I was a kid. Before I was a, you know, a nun. So I’m - I’m thankful for the abbey, and for the sky and the sea and the hills, and for - I mean, I guess -” Emma halts, takes a stuttering breath. “I’m thankful for getting to be in this house and seeing you all thankful for each other.” She laughs self-consciously, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I mean, I don’t know if that makes sense, or anything, but I drew a picture, so.”

“You were a foster kid?” Elsa asks, face inscrutable.

“Well - I mean, yeah.”

“You never mentioned that before,” Anna points out, playing with the lid of her marker. Emma laughs a little tightly.

“I mean, it doesn’t come up in conversation, right?”

“Right,” Ruby says, with an air of finality. “My turn?”

“Yes,” Regina says from the other end of the table, though she’s watching Emma carefully. “Your turn, Ruby.”

Once everyone has spoken, Regina stands to roll up the paper and take it off the table, then smiles warmly. “Who’s ready for food?”

“ _Me_!” Roland declares. Everyone around the table laughs, and Regina makes Ruby and Zelena come to the kitchen, insisting that Mrs. Lucas doesn’t get up after her work the whole day.

“You shouldn’t get up either,” Zelena argues, pushing Regina back into her seat. “You spend so much time in that kitchen I’m surprised you haven’t just become part of the furniture. We’ve got it. Emma?”

“Sure,” Emma says easily, pushing her chair back to follow the other two in the kitchen. She’s arrested with a wave of smells that are all amazing, and, embarrassingly, her stomach lets out another groan.

“ _Again_?” Zelena inquires, making a grab for the turkey, which Emma’s fairly sure is large enough to be a murder weapon, though she sounds more amused than anything.

“I’m hungry!” she protests, taking several dishes of mashed potato and gathering them up in her arms. “And this smells _amazing_.”

“How do you carry so many plates without dropping them?” Ruby asks, vaguely impressed.

“Ah, I was a waitress in a diner for some of high school,” Emma says. “We had to do it all on roller skates, too. The manager was an asshole.”

Ruby grins and takes two platters laden with vegetables. “Sounds like hell,” she says.

“It was. And -” Emma’s elaboration halts suddenly as Maleficent calls from inside.

“Zelena?” she says. “Can you come here a second?”

The request sounds reasonably mundane, but something in Maleficent’s tone must mean something to Zelena, because her brow furrows suddenly and her face takes on a serious expression.

“Be right back,” she says to neither Emma nor Ruby in particular, and exits without another word. Emma turns to Ruby, whose mouth has become suddenly set in a thin line.

“Ruby,” Emma says, beginning to put together the pieces of what’s just happened. “Ruby. Hey.”

Ruby expels a sharp breath but is otherwise silent. “Thanksgiving is a trigger for her,” she says eventually, tone clinical and detached. “Or at least I think it is, we don’t...she usually - this usually happens. Just not - not at dinner.” The lines of her lips are drawn downwards in an image that doesn’t show anything but intense sadness.

“Okay,” Emma says softly, cautious of doing anything else.

“We should put this stuff out on the table,” she says, clearly trying to figure out how best to rearrange her face before she goes out into the dining room. “Before it gets cold.”

“Okay,” Emma repeats.

“Okay.” Ruby breathes in deeply, once. “Okay.”

In the dining room, the children are talking, but quietly, as though worried to speak too loud. Maleficent, Zelena and Regina are noticeably absent, and only return once the rest of them are halfway done.

“Mama!” Roland says, looking up and smiling widely. “You and Melephant and Auntie Z almost missed all of dinner!”

“I know, _mi cielo_ , I’m sorry,” Regina tells him with her Roland Smile (which is different from, for example, her Mulan Smile, which is different from her Henry Smile, and so on). “I just needed your Auntie Z’s help with something.”

“We saved you some,” Emma says with a quiet smile.

“Well, _obviously_ you did,” Zelena tells her with a huff, taking her seat with a flourish and beginning to scoop a healthy dose of mashed potatoes onto her plate. Regina only smiles back at her, a little subdued, but all there. Emma watches the way Mal holds her hand under the table and doesn’t let go for the rest of their dinner.

 

“Come in,” Regina’s voice echoes behind the wood of her study door after Emma knocks. “Ah, Emma. You’ve caught me redhanded.” She gestures towards her glass of wine with a sheepish smile. “Would you like one?”

“I mean, sure,” Emma says, scratching her head.

“You look like your usual poison is a little stronger,” Regina says, raising a brow.

“I mean, actually, I haven’t drunken anything in years,” Emma says, a little embarrassed.

“Of course,” she says in response, wine sloshing a little in her glass in a way that makes Emma wonder if it’s her first. “Convent. Nun. Completely forgot.”

Emma laughs, the sound a little stiff. “I feel like _I_ forget now, sometimes.”

Regina’s brow furrows. “Well, how about breaking that vow of chastity?”

“Chastity is, like, sex,” Emma says. “We tend to call the not-drinking thing abstinence?”

“Ah, yes, abstinence,” she replies, nodding a little too emphatically. Emma is now ninety percent sure that she’s at least slightly tipsy. “That’s what it’s called. Not chastity.” Regina stops, sends her a lopsided grin that suddenly makes her look far younger that she’s ever seemed before. “Perhaps my mind was in the wrong place.”

“Perhaps,” Emma replies, half embarrassed but mostly amused.

“So? Merlot? It’s very classy.”

“Sure,” she says, because why the hell not. Her eye is caught by the record player in the corner. “Hey, is that real?”

“Well, it’s not just there for decoration,” Regina says wryly, handing Emma her glass.

“Can I look?” Emma asks, already halfway there.

“Of course,” she says, following her. They stop there as Emma surveys it, unable to restrain her delight.

“One of my foster families had one of these,” she tells her, carefully inspecting the device. “Never used it, though. I would wait ‘til they were out and then play Beatles records on it.”

“You like The Beatles?”

“Not really, it was just all they had,” Emma says with a shrug. “Hey, what do you have?”

Regina hums, sets down her wine glass and bends over to retrieve a large box from beside the cabinet that the record player is sitting on. “Take your pick,” she says, dropping it front of Emma.

“Woah,” Emma says with a grin, crouching down to leaf through the records. Most of the ones on the top are ones she kind of expects from Regina now, _100 Pieces of Western Classical Music_ and _Maria Callas sings Carmen_ and _Lady Sings the Blues_ and _Carpenters Gold_. But she gets to a certain point in the pile when the music switches genre decidedly, and lets out a crow of laughter.

“Didn’t have you pegged for a Springsteen gal, Captain Mills,” she says, pulling the record out. Regina flushes, but to her credit, only slightly, and the colour may be from the wine more than anything else.

“Ah, yes. Evidence of my teenage rebellion,” she says in a mocking tone of voice, but her eyes are roving over the record fondly. “I doubt I’d even remember one song of his now.”

“Hm, I don’t believe you,” Emma says, already taking the record out of its sleeve and setting it onto the player. There’s a brief scratch of the needle before the harmonica of _Thunder Road_ starts wheezing into the study.

“ _The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves, like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays_ …” Regina sings quietly, closing her eyes and swaying slightly off beat. Emma snorts.

“Not even one song, huh?”

Regina cracks open one eye to glare at her. “You’re very rude, Miss Swan.”

“I’m not sure you actually believe that,” Emma says, her tone beginning to lilt a little before she can stop herself. “You know I was just teasing.”

“Yes,” Regina says, taking a step towards her before Emma can even register that the movement’s taken place. “You’re very good at that.”

This is cryptic and vaguely sexual enough for Emma to have very big red alarm bells going off in her head, and she takes a step back to reclaim the distance that was originally between them. “Anyway,” she coughs. “I was just...I came to...” she pauses and licks her lips, trying to find a phrase for it that doesn’t sound too bad.

“Check on me?” Regina finishes, raising an eyebrow and picking up her glass of wine again. “And here I thought this was just a friendly house call.”

“Regina…”

“Emma, whilst I appreciate the concern, I already have two grown women and around four children who also seem to be labouring under the impression that I’m not an adult fully capable of making her own decisions.”

Emma winces at the sharp tone, one she hasn’t heard in a while. “Thanksgiving -”

“Was days ago.”

“Only two,” she argues. “And it scared the shit out of the kids.” At the way Regina’s expression hardens, she sighs and scrunches her eyes up, already regretting her choice of argument. “Look, this isn’t - I’m not trying to guilt you into anything. That’s not…” She trails off and sighs again. “You know what I mean,” she murmurs eventually.

“And _why_ should I know what you mean?” Regina inquires sharply. Emma bites her lip against the harshness of the words.

“Because - you always do, okay?” she says, tone slightly urging, and to her relief the other woman seems to soften at the words. “I know - I _know_ it’s harder than - than seeing someone, or ‘getting better’, but…”

Regina sighs, turns away. Emma feels something cold run through her at the sight of Regina’s back to her, reaches for her shoulder before she can help herself.

“Emma,” Regina says softly.

“You’re not doing it alone,” Emma tells her, pleading. “I promise you’re not. You’ve got seven amazing kids, and a sister, and a...a girlfriend you’ve known for _years_ who knows you like the back of her hand - and me, for what it’s worth.”

“I know. I know I do. I just...” Regina halts her own words, sips from her wine. “It’s worth very much,” she says at last, changing the subject. “Having you, I mean. I know we didn’t...get off to the best start…”

Emma snorts. “You can say that again, _Captain_ ,” she says, stepping to the side as Regina turns back around to give her a look.

“Even so,” she continues pointedly. “We -”

There’s a knock on the door suddenly, just audible over Bruce Springsteen.

“Regina?”

“Come in, Mal,” Regina says. Mal does, easing herself through the door wrapped in a black silk nightgown that Emma almost feels obliged to look away from.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you...had company.”

“Emma and I were just discussing the merits of Bruce Springsteen over some wine,” Regina says easily. “Care for some?”

“Have I ever said no to you, darling?” Maleficent responds in a purr, and Emma feels her cheeks colour slightly, moving to the corner of the room on instinct. Regina doesn’t respond, only retrieves a glass from the cabinet with the record player on it and pours her some.

“Oh, look,” she says. “Bottle’s empty. That was quick.”

“Hm,” Maleficent says, taking the glass from Regina’s hands. “Quite the drinking partner, are you, Miss Swan?”

“No, no, no,” Regina says before Emma can even think to respond. “Emma’s still on her first glass. This is all me. Slightly embarrassingly.”

“I see. And drinking alone to Bruce Springsteen is _du jour_ , now, is it?” Maleficent brings a hand up to tuck some of Regina’s hair behind her ear, grazing her cheek with her fingers. Emma swallows a gulp of wine and looks away.

“Drinking alone, sometimes,” Regina says. “But I was in blissful silence until Emma came.”

“Hey,” Emma says, not liking the accusing tone in her voice. “You were totally on board for The Boss, don’t act like you weren’t.” She looks to Maleficent and gives her a conspiratorial grin. “Regina knows all the words to _Thunder Road_.”

“Does she?” Maleficent says, turning towards Regina, eyebrows hiking up even higher on her forehead.

“No,” Regina says stubbornly, shooting Emma a glare that only intensifies when she gets a smirk in response. A beat, then she adds in a mumble: “I also know the harmonica part.”

“All these hidden depths coming out tonight,” Emma teases.

“I like music very much, Emma,” Regina tells her, flopping down onto the couch and bringing Maleficent with her. “Sit down,” she says, gesturing towards the empty chair nearby. The wine sloshes again, coming close to tipping out of the glass, and Emma eyes the carpet warily as she lowers herself into it.

“Careful,” Mal says, clearly mindful of the same thing. “Enough wine for tonight?”

“Absolutely not,” Regina says.

“Right,” Mal replies, rolling her eyes at Emma as she does so and then mouthing _wine mom_ before saying: “Whatever you say.”

“You’re both very good to me,” Regina says thoughtfully, and there is so much honesty behind the words that Emma feels her throat clog up a little.

“Darling,” Mal says fondly. It’s an endearment Emma can’t reiterate in any form herself, so she settles for silence and a small smile.

“I have an idea,” Regina says abruptly after long moments spent staring pensively into her wine glass. “It’s almost Christmas, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Emma says.

“Maybe we should do a party,” she says. This is such an un-Regina-like suggestion that Emma coughs slightly in surprise and Maleficent sits up.

“Throw a party, darling.”

“Maybe we should throw a party.”

“Uh, a Christmas party?” Emma ventures. “Here?”

“Yes,” Regina confirms. “Here. It’s really a very big house. Zelena can invite all her friends since I don’t have very many and the children can invite all their friends too. Maybe all of Storybrooke. And you two can come, obviously. It can be very extravagant.”

“And since when have you been keen on extravagant?” Maleficent inquires, voicing Emma’s exact thoughts.

Regina shrugs. “Why not?” she asks.

In the three weeks that follow, Regina doesn’t change her mind about the Mills Christmas party, though she doesn’t quite explain it to anyone, either. For someone who isn’t very keen on extravagant, Regina seems to know a remarkable amount about party-planning, and is able to pull enough strings that everything is ready in time, despite her only having decided on the party at all about a fortnight before. The money for the thing seems to have materialised out of nowhere. When Emma mentions this one day as she surveys Regina picking between table cover colours, all she’s answered with is a shrug.

“My mother did this sort of thing almost every other week,” she says without looking up. “And no, it isn’t rude to ask about where the money is coming from. Well, not very, anyway. Mother left me a rather frustratingly large amount when she passed away and quite frankly half the time I have no idea what to do with it - apart from save it up for the children - so a little taken from there isn’t going to hurt anyone. Pearl or ivory?”

Emma squints. “Uh, is there a difference?”

Regina sighs. “Just as useless as Henry.”

“Pearl, I guess?” Emma says in response, feeling pressured to say something.

Regina pauses, looks down. “No, ivory is definitely better,” she concludes.

At Mulan’s suggestion, Regina turns the party into a charity benefit open for attendance by the entire town, and word spreads quickly. Emma also discovers what Regina actually _does_ , at long last.

“Corporate fundraising,” Zelena tells her, and, at Emma’s raised eyebrows, elaborates with a slight eye-roll: “She basically negotiates with companies to get them to help the charity she works for.”

“Charity?”

“She bounces between different ones. I think the one she’s with now is for research into heart disease.”

“Oh,” Emma says. “Nice. What’s the benefit raising money for?”

“Dave Thomas Foundation,” Zelena says. “For adoption.”

The children get so excited that by the evening itself Emma is too, though generally she doesn’t really go for the whole fancy dress ball sort of thing. She thinks she’s more excited to see the theories of all of Regina’s delicately laid plans spin themselves into practice, ivory tablecloths and fancy champagne and live band and all. She takes so long getting ready - it’s been a long time since she’s had to apply make-up for anything - that Henry ends up bursting into her room eagerly with barely a knock.

“Hey!” she says, whirling around and pointing her mascara wand at him. “Not cool. You’re trespassing.”

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding the least bit contrite. “Come on, everyone’s here already!”

“Kid, no one’s gonna notice if I’m not there for a while,” Emma tells him as she turns back to the mirror and finishes her mascara off.

“Uh, _we_ will,” he says as though she’s the stupidest person he’s ever met. Then, with a smirk, he adds: “So will Mom.”

Emma jerks slightly at this remark, letting out a muttered curse as the wand jabs into her eye as a response. “I don’t know why you’ve got _that_ stupid look on your face,” she says in a remarkably composed tone.

“Sure you don’t,” he says, but the smirk doesn’t disappear. Emma scowls as she reaches for her eyeliner.

“Whatever,” she says. “Are you just gonna stand there until I’m done?”

“Yep,” he tells her, popping the ‘p’ and putting his hands behind his back as he rocks on his heels. Emma eyes him in the mirror.

“You clean up pretty well,” she says. “Did Rubes help you with your tie?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “You too.”

“Hm?”

“You clean up well too,” he clarifies. “Your dress is nice.”

“Thanks,” she says, tugging slightly at the hem with her spare hand. The Reverend Mother would probably have a fit if she saw it, but hey, this is what she wanted, anyway. “Not too risqué? Wait, why am I asking an eleven year-old boy this?”

“Not too risqué,” he confirms, before grinning slyly. “Not compared to The Dragon’s, anyway.”

“Henry,” Emma says warningly.

“It’s true!”

“You should not be calling your mom’s - your mother’s…”

“ _Special friend_?” he finishes dryly.

“Whatever she is,” Emma says. “I still don’t get why you call her a...dragon.”

“It’s the look in her eyes that she gets when she’s annoyed,” he tells her, seating himself heavily onto her bed. “Very reptilian.”

“Big words, big man,” she teases. He glares.

“Hurry up.”

“Okay, okay, I’m done,” she says, putting her lipstick away and brushing down the skirt of her dress. Henry leaps up and offers her his arm and a grin to go with it.

“Shall we, milady?” he asks.

Emma laughs. “We shall, Sir Henry.”

The scene that accosts Emma as they descend the staircase is one of absolute grandeur, and she has to blink two or three times to take it in.

“Holy crap,” she murmurs. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to something this swanky in my life.”

“Don’t worry,” Henry says cheekily, “I think most of Storybrooke is in the same boat.”

Pretty much everyone Emma’s ever seen in Storybrooke is here, plus a few more she hasn’t - the ones lounging about with expressions of cool indifference on their faces are who she assumes to be Zelena’s friends from New York. They’ve barely made it down before Emma reaches to grab a glass of champagne from a nearby table.

“No more abstinence from alcohol now that you’re not a nun?” a voice inquires from behind her and Henry. She jumps and turns to find Elsa in a resplendent shade of blue, looking more at ease in her dress than Emma would have expected. She smiles widely.

“You look beautiful!” she declares.

Elsa offers her a half-smile. “Thanks,” she says, then after a moment: “You too.”

“Ah…” Emma says, preparing to accept the compliment with as much grace as she can manage, when a hand claps onto her shoulder and a figure barrels into her legs.

“Hey, stranger,” Ruby grins from behind her. “We’re looking for a woman by the name of Emma Swan? Looks kind of like you, just a lot less…put together?”

“Roland! Careful!” Emma lets out, just managing to keep from toppling over with her champagne glass by leaning slightly on Henry, who lets out an exaggerated groan of protest. “Shut up, Henry.”

“Emma!” Roland says with a beam. “I’m wearin’ a suit like Hen’s!”

“I see, bud,” she says, before turning to Ruby. “Someone’s going to melt hearts tonight.”

“I think _someone_ already has,” she answers, nodding towards Zelena’s corner of friends. “He’s been the only thing that’s got them to smile all evening.”

“ _All evening_ ,” Emma repeats with a scoff. “The night is still young! And I smell food!”

“How surprising,” Elsa observes dryly. Emma, mature as always, sticks her tongue out at her.

“Where are your far nicer, lovelier sisters?” she asks.

“In the garden with Mom,” Ruby says, beginning to walk in that direction. “And it’s looking fly, by the way. Kinda wish we had it like that all the time.”

“No!” Roland protests.

“He’s only saying that because they covered the apple tree in fairy lights,” Elsa says.

“The _stables_! Emma, tell her!”

“They’re called stables, Elsa,” Emma tells her solemnly.

“Right. Sorry, Ro.”

“Are we going to the garden or not?” Henry protests, tugging on Emma’s arm.

“Okay, give me a sec!” she says. “I gotta finish this champagne! _And_...get me some food…”

“ _Emma_ ,” he says despairingly. “It’s _nice_ outside.”

“Okay,” she says, looking at him carefully. “What’s so special about the garden? Are you up to something?”

Henry flushes. “No,” he says, clearly lying.

“Whatever’s outside can’t be -” Emma cuts herself off with a sigh as she realises what - or who - exactly is outside. “Henry, seriously?”

“What?” he says, widening his eyes innocently. “You can hear the band better from out there!”

“Sure,” she says. “Go on ahead. I’m gonna grab some food. I’ll catch you up later.”

With a sigh, he obeys, taking his siblings with him. Emma slides her way over to the snacks table, immediately going for the mozzarella sticks.

“Yes,” she murmurs under her breath, casting a glance around her before taking five at once.

“I see you’re a fan of the snacks table,” a voice remarks from somewhere behind her shoulder. For the second time in about ten minutes, Emma jumps in surprise.

“Jesus! Oh, Maleficent,” she says, slightly breathless from her shock. “Hi. You look, uh - amazing.”

Maleficent smiles, a little sinister. _Reptilian_ , Henry’s voice says in Emma’s head. “Thank you. You look lovely too. Who’d have thought nuns could dress up so well?”

Emma lets out a high-pitched laugh, feeling her grip tighten a little too much around her champagne flute. “Who’d have thought,” she says.

“Wonderful bash Regina’s throwing,” Maleficent says, plucking a carrot stick from the dish nearest to her and dipping it into hummus (which, what? Who eats plain hummus?). “Wish she’d do it more often.”

“Yeah,” Emma says, taking a sip of her champagne. “I mean, you must have loads like these in New York.”

“A little bigger, usually,” she says offhandedly. “Publishing parties tend to be for anyone who knows anyone.”

“Right.”

A beat, then: “Well, I should leave you to your…” Maleficent trails off and eyes Emma’s handful of mozzarella sticks. “Snacks. You wouldn’t happen to know where Regina is, would you?”

For reasons unbeknown to her, Emma says: “I think I saw her going upstairs.” Which is a lie. Maleficent smiles.

“ _Per_ fect,” she says, and Emma doesn’t want to unpack the connotations of _that_. “See you later.”

“See you.” Emma watches as she leaves, beginning to shove the mozzarella sticks into her mouth. She becomes acutely aware that she’s being watched, and rolls her eyes after her third stick.

“Zelena,” she sighs. “What?”

“Nothing,” Zelena says, swanning over from the next table over. “What are you groaning my name for, Emma Swan?”

“I don’t know, what are you _staring_ at me for?”

Zelena smiles. “You’re more entertaining than most of the people here.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“Don’t take it as too much of a compliment. It isn’t hard to be more exciting than Leroy.”

“Right.”

“I didn’t realise you and Mal were on such... _friendly_ terms,” Zelena says, plucking the last of two mozzarella sticks from Emma’s fingers and taking a bite off it.

“Is that sarcasm?”

“Is the sky blue? Does water boil at one hundred degrees celsius?”

“Okay, okay,” Emma sighs. “Look, I don’t know, she’s been kinda weird these past weeks. All...dragon-y.”

Zelena snorts. “I see the children have inducted you into their cult of hatred.”

“They haven’t! She’s just been...I don’t know. It’s whatever.”

“Whatever. Sure,” Zelena says.

“Well, do _you_ know what’s up with her?” Emma asks a little irritably.

“Maybe,” she replies with a smirk. “Though it’s really quite obvious, darling.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“As you wish, sweetpea.” Zelena leans away slightly to grab a new flute of champagne. “I should go mingle. These New Yorkers hate being left alone in a strange place. Go find my sister, I know you’re dying to.”

“Zelena -”

“In the _garden_ ,” she says with a wink, before leaving.

“God,” Emma groans. Maybe she was less subtle with this whole crush thing than she’d thought. Taking a disgruntled bite of her last mozzarella stick, she begins to make her way towards the garden doors. The band is playing Christmas songs just inside of them, and the garden is so beautiful that it’s no wonder there’s almost as many people milling around outside as there are inside. Everywhere is strung up with fairy lights, winking in the darkness, and the patio has been extended with wooden deck for more people to stand on.

“Emma!” Anna says, turning and catching sight of her from her place by the trees. “Hey! The party’s so pretty! Do you like the lights? You look _gor_ geous!”

“Like a princess,” Belle agrees with a wide smile, reaching her first.

“High praise _indeed_ from Princesses Anna and Belle,” Emma says, feeling her smile widen to match theirs. “Where are the others?”

“Ruby and Roland went to the toilet and to say hi to Dorothy,” Belle says. “Henry and Regina are over there. Elsa’s inside talking to the boy in her English class who came -”

“Boy in her English class?” Emma remarks, smile turning into a more suggestive grin. “I’ve never heard of _him_ before.”

“He’s very pretty,” Anna tells her seriously.

“Is he?”

“His hair is wavy.”

“Great. I love guys who know how to use shampoo.”

“Hey, Emma,” Henry says, running up to her. “You know how to dance, right?”

“I mean, kinda,” Emma says. “My foster dad taught me, once upon a time.” She looks up to see Regina trailing behind Henry, hair elegantly styled and shoulders bare from her dress, and swallows.

“Regina,” she manages. “Hi.”

“Hello, Emma,” Regina says, voice warm. “You look beautiful.”

God, she’s blushing. This is so embarrassing. “Thanks. Uh - you too.”

“Emma!” Henry says, tugging at her sleeve as the band strikes up _Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas_. “Come on, dance!”

“Alright, alright,” she concedes with a laugh. “So, you bow. I curtsey.” When he obeys solemnly, she says: “Now, you put your hand on my waist. I put mine on your shoulder. And we hold hands.” He fumbles briefly and Emma sniggers. “Come on, Henry, it’s not that hard, this is, like, textbook movie stuff. How are you ever gonna dance with your date at prom?”

“Give me a second!” he protests. “Okay, got it.”

“Good,” Emma says. “Okay, usually the boy should lead, but I’ll lead for now.” She starts moving to the beat of the song, which is slow and steady, letting her muscle memory take over as she does so. “So it goes, one, two, three, and - one, two, three, and -”

“It’s hard,” he groans, stumbling to keep up.

“You’ll get it,” she says, before wincing as he steps on her toes. “Eventually.”

“Ugh,” Henry lets out after a few more minutes, when they're halfway through the saxophone’s instrumental, dropping her hands. “I give up.”

“That was a short-lived attempt,” Emma says, raising an eyebrow. “The song isn’t even over. Who’s gonna dance me through the rest of it?”

He hesitates a moment, before his face lights up in a way that Emma knows historically to mean trouble, and he spins around. “Mom!” he says.

Regina looks up from her conversation with Anna and a random guest. “Henry?”

“You know how to dance, right? Your mom made you take lessons.”

“Yes,” she says slowly, eyeing Henry, then Emma, who is currently wishing for the ground to open and swallow her up.

“Dance with Emma!” he urges. “For the last chorus.”

Regina glances questioningly at Emma, who shrugs. “Sure,” she says, trying to sound as calm as possible. “Why not?”

“Okay,” Regina says, taking a few steps towards her before setting a hand on her waist. Emma tries not to react too obviously at the contact, the way Regina’s fingers feel like they’re burning through the fabric of her dress. “I’ll lead?” she asks in a murmur.

“Yeah,” Emma says, feet already following hers. It’s only the last chorus, she tells herself. Not enough time for stupid romantic things like liking the way Regina’s hand feels in hers or the way their bodies fit together or the way she hums along to the band behind them, or even more stupid things like forgetting that anyone else is even there or feeling the fairy lights blur around them slightly.

And she’s right, because there isn’t enough time for that, really - all that there _is_ enough time for is Emma feeling her breath sync with Regina’s and their hands to get slightly sweaty in each others’. Nothing blurs, she’s hyper-aware of everyone around them, and she doesn’t even look Regina in the eye until the song stops - and even then it’s just for a second. But it takes them too long to move apart and away from each other, and Emma can’t stop looking at the curve of Regina’s jaw and the arch of her neck, can’t stop smelling the champagne and vanilla off her skin, can’t stop thinking _you, you, you_.

“That was really good,” Anna’s voice says, drifting in from behind Regina, and they spring apart as though stung, both wiping their hands on her dresses almost immediately. Around them, nothing has changed; the band has carried on playing and there are people still dancing around them.

“Your face is all red,” Anna observes, looking at Emma.

“Is it?” Emma answers dazedly, still looking at Regina and bringing a hand to her cheek. “I - guess I haven’t danced in a long time.”

Regina doesn’t say anything, only keeps looking at her, staring intently, like she’s -

“I should go back inside,” Emma says suddenly, voice shaking. “I, uh...need to find Archie. Say hello.”

She doesn’t wait for anyone to say anything, rushes inside and up the stairs immediately, blood pounding in her ears as she slams the door of her bedroom shut behind her.

“Fuck,” she says out loud, the word affirming her panic as it echoes around the space of the room. Her body moves on autopilot, grabbing the duffel from her wardrobe and shoving the nearest items of clothing within her reach into it. _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ she thinks, and _double fuck_ for good measure. The crush was _fine_ , was absolutely _fine_ , but she had to go and - mix it up with something else, let herself think that quiet smiles and lasagne without paprika and wine in the study were - were -

“ _Idiot_ ,” Emma whispers to herself as she shoves yet more clothing into the bag. There’s a soft knock on the door that she barely hears over the thud of her own heart.

“One second,” she says, trying to sound far more together than she feels and shoving the bag to one side. She stalks over to the door and wrenches it open, finding herself in the second of her surprise encounters with Mal Drake of the evening. “Maleficent,” she says, every syllable coming out false to her own ears as she remembers her dance with Regina, hand on her waist and dark eyes that burned like amber.

“Roland is asking for you and no one but you downstairs,” she says without preamble. “He -” she cuts herself off abruptly as she manages to catch a glimpse of Emma’s room. “Are you...packing?”

“No,” Emma says immediately, then sighs. “I mean - yeah, yes, I am. Look, Maleficent - I can't be here any more.”

“And why not?” she asks, surveying her curiously.

Emma wills herself to keep from blushing. “I just…can’t.”

Maleficent shifts her weight slightly onto one leg and is silent for a moment, before saying: “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Emma blinks. “Wait, what?”

“Miss Swan,” she says on a laugh that doesn’t sound very amused. “I hardly think a nun hired to take care of children should be going round falling in love with her employer, especially when that employer is female.”

Emma feels her cheeks flame immediately, tenses her jaw. “I didn’t - I’m not -”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Maleficent drawls, looking every bit the dragon that the children insist she is. “It can hardly be helped. Particularly when Regina can’t keep her eyes off you, either. I’m surprised the two of you dancing tonight didn’t set something on fire, with all that heat.”

Emma swallows hard at the thought of Maleficent witnessing the two of them in the garden. The memory feels suddenly sullied somehow. “Look, I’m sorry, I never meant to - I never did - anything -”

“You didn’t have to, really. Your brand of puppy love is rather...irresistible. And I imagine Regina’s under some sort of impression that she reciprocates it, beneath all those levels of denial. It’ll pass, I’m sure.”

Emma can only stare, stunned. “I can’t be here any more,” she ends up repeating, moving inside towards her bag and resuming with packing. “I can’t -”

“Is there anything I can do?” Maleficent asks from the door. Emma wants to yell and scream and punch her in the face, say _yes, take it back, admit_ _you’re wrong_ , _because it’s not love_ , _it’s not love, it’s not love,_ _I don’t even know if love’s a thing I can do._ Instead, she stops, turns, swallows and says: “Don’t tell - Regina. Or the - or the children.”

Maleficent’s face remains passive, almost understanding. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, and Emma believes her, nods jerkily, returns to her packing so she doesn’t have to look at her again. There’s a long silence, before she hears the _snick_ of her own door opening.

“Goodbye, Miss Swan,” Mal says from the doorway. Emma freezes but doesn’t look up. “I’m sure you’ll make a very fine nun.”

 _Click_ goes the door, and Emma wants to scream. Instead, she keeps packing, thinks her way out of the mansion and Storybrooke and across Maine, maps out her route. At a quarter to two in the morning, when the last of the drunkards have left and everyone in the house is fast asleep, she slips out of the front door and into the cool clear night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has (a) the longest word count of any chapter ive ever written (many apologies), and (b) possibly the best opening sentence ive written. win some, lose some, eh?  
> chapter taken from 'so long, farewell'.


	4. nothing comes from nothing

**PART IV: NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING**

**“I JUST DON’T** understand,” Regina says, looking at Elsa, “what exactly is meant by _‘gone’_.”

She watches as her daughter rolls her eyes with all the haughtiness of a teenager. “Pretty sure it only has one meaning, Mom.”

“But - _why_?”

“We don’t _know_ ,” Ruby says from across the room in an irritated tone, face drawn and pale. “You know how many times we’ve been over this, Regina.”

“I do,” she admits with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I -” She pauses. “Am just a little...surprised.”

“Well, she _did_ take off in the middle of the night with no warning,” Mal comments, earning herself twin glares from Ruby and Elsa that could kill. “What?” she says after the silence. “I’m just saying.”

“And no - no note,” Regina says, running her hand through her hair. “No text. Call. Anything?”

“Her cell keeps going straight to answer machine,” Ruby tells her. “Henry’s kinda turned her room inside out, so if there was any kind of note he definitely would have found it by now.”

“This is ridiculous,” Regina says frustratedly, standing up and beginning to pace. “She _works_ here. She can’t just _leave_ , not without -” She halts, struck by a thought that feels terrifying in its implications. “What if something’s happened to her?”

“Like _what_?” Mal says, standing up too and reaching for Regina’s shoulders to stop her from moving. “Regina. She left, she took her clothes, her belongings -”

“ _And_ she might still come back,” Ruby cuts her off, voice hard and unyielding.

Maleficent blinks, looks back at her. “Yes,” she agrees slowly, though her tone doesn’t seem entirely sincere. “You’re right. She might still come back.”

They stand in silence for a while until it’s too much for Regina to take. “I’ll - get started on dinner,” she says eventually, heading towards the kitchen before the others can say anything.

 _Gone_ , she thinks, mindlessly starting to root through the refrigerator for ingredients to make quiche. Emma is just _gone_ , and she hasn’t left anything behind, and Regina could even fool herself into thinking that she was never there in the first place. She knows that the children have no idea either - when or where or _why_ \- and the departure weighs heavily on her, for some reason. She feels like it’s her fault. Like she drove Emma out of the house without even trying.

“Shit,” Regina hisses. She’s managed to drop an egg onto the floor, carelessly. It sits pitifully against the wood and she turns to find kitchen roll.

“Mom?”

“Henry.” She halts to see him in the doorway, eyes filled with concern. She looks down at her hands. Shaking. Of course. Stupid Regina, she thinks. “Don’t worry, _corazon_ ,” she says, as soothingly as she can. “You know how my hands are, sometimes. Silly things. Always shaking. They’ll stop in a second.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, looking her up and down, eyes drawn to her hands again. “Did you drop the egg?”

“Yes,” she sighs, already kneeling to scoop it up. “Careless.”

“Worse things have happened.” There’s a tinge of amusement to his voice, Regina notes with relief. “Quiche tonight?”

“I thought I’d make the goat’s cheese and watercress. Not too spicy, you know, for -” she cuts herself off abruptly as she realises with no little horror what the end of her sentence was going to be, roots around for an alternative. “Roland,” she finishes, the syllables falling weakly out of her mouth. “He’s become...rather used to more bland tasting food. Although now I suppose we can - go back to spice…”

“Mom.” Henry’s eyes are more than sympathetic, dark and aching in the same way as she knows hers are, sometimes. There has always been so much of her in him. He has even the dark parts - the stubbornness, the harsh temper, the haughtiness that comes with intelligence. Sometimes she wonders if it isn’t her blood in his veins after all.

“How about you start on the filling?” she asks him. “Beat the eggs and the milk. Today can be a Mom and Henry dinner.”

He smiles, soft, but enough to push back the tension in her belly, ease her heartbeat, even slightly.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Regina murmurs, and she tries to believe it.

It’s easy to let the cooking distract her, at least for a little while - it’s why she started doing it, after all, using the simple, easy system of recipe and ingredients and mixing and stirring to push back thoughts so uneasy they threatened to consume her completely. Henry asks to put on some music and she lets him, because she knows he can’t bear silence for too long and he doesn’t want to push her into talking. He puts on Louis Armstrong, a favourite of both of theirs, and even the glossy trumpet sounds a little sad as it blares from the speakers. Later that evening, after Regina has managed to pull herself through dinner with reasonably little incident, she ventures towards Ruby’s room instead of going straight to her study after the younger ones have been put to sleep, tapping softly on the door.

“Yeah?”

“Hi,” Regina says, pushing open the door. Ruby is sat at her desk with her laptop, book in her lap but Facebook up on her screen. When she turns around, Regina notices the slight look of surprise on her face, but it’s quickly painted over.

“Hey, Regina. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Regina says, seating herself gingerly on Ruby’s bed. She’s only been in Ruby’s room a few times - first helping her to paint it, second when she needed some help setting up her stereo, third when Roland fell asleep here once and Regina had to tip-toe in at midnight to tuck him into his own bed. She resists the urge to look around curiously. “Nothing’s up, I just wanted to -”

Ruby sighs. “You’re worried.”

A beat. “I’m always worried,” Regina says at last, looking down.

“Right. But about me.” Ruby hesitates, brow furrowing. “This is about Emma.”

“It’s only been a couple of days,” she says. “You can’t - you can’t act like you’re completely indifferent about her having left. You don’t _have_ to act like that.”

“Neither do you,” says Ruby evenly. “Look, Regina…” She stops, bites her lip and looks thoughtful for a moment, before saying in a far smaller tone of voice than before: “I don’t know. I don’t know what I - what I feel like. I just…” She stops again, and Regina feels her body move towards her a little, tamps down on the urge to embrace her. “I kinda miss her, you know?”

“Yes,” Regina whispers. “I know.”

“Stupid,” Ruby says, letting out a huff of laughter. “Like you said, she’s - she’s only been gone, like, two days. And she’d only been here a couple of months in the first place. But I…”

“Ruby…”

“Anyway,” she says firmly before Regina can continue. “We’ll live.”

“Yes,” Regina says. The desire to hug her is back, stronger this time. She combats it by shifting towards the door, and Ruby begins to turn back around to her computer. “Don’t...stay up too late.” It’s not what she wants to say at all, not even close. But they’re the only words that fall out of her mouth on instinct, the other ones like _I’m sorry_ and _I’m here_ and _I love you_ buried too deep in her lungs to dredge up.

“Yeah,” Ruby says. “I won’t, don’t worry.”

“Good night. Sweet dreams.”

Regina closes the door on Ruby’s half-smile, lacklustre and lukewarm, and sighs, moving over to her own room a few doors down. Mal is already in bed, propped up on pillows and reading what looks like a manuscript.

“My lover returns at last,” she says, mouth quirking up into a slightly devilish smile as Regina enters. “And with a face like _thunder_ , oh my.”

Regina doesn’t answer, only kicks off her slippers and sits down heavily on the edge of her side of the bed. “I don’t know how to make this better,” she admits at last, eyes roving over the carpet. “I don’t know how _this_ happened in the first place.”

Mal moves to kneel behind her, trails fingers down her arm. “I don’t think _this_ is necessarily something you made happen,” she says slowly. “Have you ever considered that our Miss Swan felt a...calling back to the Lord God, our saviour?”

“And so suddenly?” Regina says, wry. “Without bothering to tell any one of us?”

“Mm…” She feels Mal’s hands begin to roam across her back and feels her breath slow slightly in response. “Sometimes these feelings are...sudden. And after her little crush on you…”

Regina stiffens suddenly. “What?”

“Regina,” she says as her hands halt in their movement but stay on her back, poking her head around to give her an exaggeratedly disappoint look and arch a brow. “I know you can be emotionally obtuse on occasion, but you’re not _blind_. You must have known the girl was crazy about you.”

She feels everything in her freeze and shake, like shivers in her gut. “She’s a - she’s a _nun_ -”

“Ideological difficulties,” Maleficent hums thoughtfully, and she sounds so _calm_ and Regina feels like everything inside her is being tossed up and thrown away, the thought of Emma - Emma _Swan_ , who’s gone and left an empty room and dresser in her place, being _crazy_ about her -

“No,” she breathes. “Maleficent, don’t be - don’t be _ridiculous_. She…”

“You can’t blame her,” Mal says, words throaty and amused as her fingers come to rest against Regina’s neck. “ _Captain Mills_. You’re quite the attractive figure.”

“Stop,” Regina says, willing her voice not to shake. “That’s - it’s -”

“Ridiculous?”

“ _Not true_ ,” she bites out, her foolish mind already compiling an assortment of memories, Emma staring at her in her nightgown and laughing at her inane jokes and listening to Bruce Springsteen with her and placing a hand on her shoulder and saying _and me, for what it’s worth_ , and, only a few nights ago, _dancing_. They _danced_.  

“Regina…”

“No,” she says, feeling her fingers stiffen in the comforter. “That’s not -” she stops short, breathes. “Why would you say that,” she mutters at last, not looking at her. Maleficent exhales slightly, then moves from behind her to come sit at her side again.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she says in a murmur.

“I know,” Regina says, closing her eyes and breathing again. Emma is scorched onto her eyelids, has set up camp in her head and is refusing to leave. “I know.”

“Sleep?”

“Yes.” They move under the blankets, Mal reaching to turn off the lamp. “Yes,” Regina says again for no reason at all, feeling the letters on her lips and trying to clear her mind. “Sleep,” she echoes blankly into the darkness, and doesn’t sleep for the whole night.

 

“How about a trip to the market?” Regina asks. It’s getting harder and harder to imbue her tone with optimism and the children’s blank looks aren’t helping.

“With ‘ma?” Roland inquires, vaguely interested. Regina bites her lip, the abbreviation of Emma’s name grating slightly against her ears.

“No, _mijo_ ,” she says. “Just me today.”

“Just you?” Mulan has looked up at her from her reclining position, legs resting against the arm of the couch as she reads a book. Regina knows what her daughter is implying and resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“Just me,” she repeats, a little deadpan. “Is that going to induce a little more enthusiasm from you?”

“Actually,” Mulan says, sitting up. “Yes. I kinda wanna get out of the house.”

“Well then. Roland? Market with your sister and I?”

Roland considers carefully. “No Emma?” he asks.

“No. Not this...time.”

“‘Kay,” he assents at last. “Wanna see the lights. Pretty. ‘Ma can come next time, Mama?”

“Yes,” Regina says, the lie thick and heavy in her throat. “Next time. Let’s get you dressed, sweetheart. Mulan, at the door in ten minutes?”

“Sure,” Mulan says, not moving. “Got it.”

“You need to change,” Regina says.

“I know.”

“And be ready to go in ten minutes.”

“You already said that, Mom.”

“I’m aware, just trying to understand why, despite knowing both of these things, your butt hasn’t moved off of this couch.”

“ _Mom_ ,” she huffs. “I can dress myself and time it fine, okay?”

“O _kay_ ,” Regina sings in the unmistakable voice of a sceptic. “Come, Roland. Let’s leave your very grown-up sister to her own devices. Ten minutes, Mulan, I mean it. Or we’re leaving without you.”

Predictably, it ends up being twenty minutes before Mulan’s ready to go and they actually leave, but Regina can’t comment on these things, because she knows her daughter and she knows it’ll only leave her grumpy. Instead they walk towards the centre of Storybrooke, Roland excitedly crunching through all the snow that comes into his path and blatantly ignoring Regina’s warnings of his getting wet trousers.

“Look, Mama!” he says with unrestrained joy. “Snowball!”

“I see, baby,” she says, unable to contain her smile at him. Mulan is walking beside of both of them, shaking her head.

“Ro, that’s got, like, a billion germs in it, you just scooped it off the pile over there,” she says.

“Didn’t,” he says indignantly.  “No germs.”

“You did.”

“ _Didn’t_.”

“Did.”

“ _Didn’t_!” Roland’s beginning to get upset now, and Mulan’s next response is stymied by the sharp look that Regina gives her in warning. She sighs.

“Fine,” she tells him, ever the graceful big sister. “You didn’t. No germs.”

“None that’ll harm you, anyway,” Regina says. She winks at Mulan in the brief moment that Roland looks away, and the shared look between them warms her, even with the December wind biting at her cheeks.

Regina is sure that their trip to market is entirely mundane, but she treasures every minute of it, handles it carefully, as though it might break. On the way back they swing Roland between them, each taking an arm and half his weight, and her youngest son’s giggles mix with Mulan’s in a way that makes her heart throb slightly, expanding and expanding until she’s filled with feeling. They step inside and stamp the snow off their shoes onto the doormat, faces rubbed raw from the cold. Mulan is smiling to herself and for a moment their gazes collide over Roland’s head, and Regina can’t keep from smiling back, big and wide.

“Good trip?” she asks, because she can’t resist, needs to know that somewhere they can still manage to connect. Mulan seems to know; like Henry, she’s always had a gift for connecting the dots.

“Yeah,” she says, then, surprisingly, reaches for Regina’s hand, their gloves fitting together clumsily. “Thanks, Mom.”

Regina casts around for words and can’t find any. Instead, emboldened by their contact, she moves closer and presses her lips to Mulan’s forehead. She doesn’t even have to stoop, she realises abruptly with a hint of fear. Her baby, she thinks. Her baby has grown up and is shooting up like a plant.

“Mama!” Roland says from behind her. “Lunch today? Special lunch?”

“Hm,” Regina says, moving away from Mulan but unable to let go of her hand just yet. “Special lunch, huh? What did you have in mind?”

“Cookies! And mashed potatoes. And ice cream -”

“It’s kinda cold for ice cream,” Mulan comments.

“Doesn’t matter,” he insists. “And cabon.”

“Carbonara?” Regina asks.

“What I said,” he tells her with a firm nod.

“And you want all of this together.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Regina eyes him carefully, then begins to smile. “Let’s do it, then.”

Roland barely waits for her to finish her sentence before letting out a squeal of joy and dragging her towards the kitchen. “Ice cream!” he yells, then, upon encountering his elder sister just leaving with a large sandwich on a plate in her hand and her cell phone in the other: “Ruby! We makin’ special lunch!”

“Special lunch?” Ruby asks, glancing at Regina.

“Yeah! Ice cream and potatoes and cookies and ‘nara!”

“Yum,” she says, stepping aside. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Why don’t you help us,” Regina blurts out, because she thinks she might as well push her luck today since she has so many times already. She looks at Ruby and all she can see is two nights ago, Ruby’s face wan and a sadness in her eyes that she didn’t know how to make better.

“Yeah! Rubes! Please!” Roland stops to tug at his sister’s hand, but his eyes are already flitting to the kitchen. Regina realises she only has a few more seconds to convince her, if she’s going to at all.

“It would be very nice if you did,” she says in a quiet, measured tone, looking her in the eye.

Ruby holds her gaze for a long two seconds, then says with a small smile: “Okay.”

Roland lets out a whoop and sprints for the kitchen. “R- _ooooooo_ -land Lunch!” he yells. She pauses, unsure of what to say now that the two of them are alone. Ruby seems to sense her lack of assurance, slipping her arm around Regina’s waist and squeezing. Regina takes in a sharp breath for a moment, before daring to press her nose to the crown of Ruby’s head, smelling her shampoo.

“Let’s go,” she murmurs. “Before your brother ruins the kitchen.”

Ruby lets out a laugh and follows Roland into the kitchen. Regina smiles to herself and does the same.

 

“Maybe we should do it,” Regina says into the quiet of her bedroom suddenly one night, fingers tracing insensible patterns on Mal’s hip. It’s been almost ten days since Emma left and, to her dismay, her absence is still palpable - not a hole, but more of a gap, the pause between breaths and ellipses between words. Sometimes Regina catches the tightness in Elsa’s face at random moments, or realises that she isn’t playing a game with Anna quite like Emma used to, and the emptiness twists in her gut until it sweeps over her like rain.

All she has left are fleeting moments to push warmth back into her skin - the occasional laugh that she shares with Ruby, listening to Henry tell her a story of something funny that happened earlier in the day, watching nature documentaries with Elsa because they’re the only two people in the household who actually enjoy them. She _sees_ her children now, properly, and that, she supposes, makes her more hopeful than before. And sometimes the hope bubbles and pushes itself up into her mouth and makes her say things abruptly, like now.

Maleficent turns over, eyes barely visible in the darkness. “Do what?” she asks, voice rough. She was just on the verge of sleep, Regina knows. Maybe that’s why she said it. Maybe she was hoping the words wouldn’t be heard.

“Maybe we should…” she trails off, feeling suddenly shy. “You know,” she says weakly.

“Do I know?”

She doesn’t need to see Mal; she can hear the raised eyebrow in her voice. “You - yes, you do. We’ve known each other a long - time, and -”

“Some might say too long,” Mal interjects, but her tone is soft.

Regina exhales. She’s started and she can’t un-say the words, even though she’s vaguely aware that there’s a space between what she wants and what she’s saying. “Maleficent…”

“No, please, continue. Apologies for interrupting. I was liking where you were going, before.”

“You were,” Regina murmurs.

Mal’s fingers come up to brush her jaw, moving slightly to curl into her hair. “I was.”

And if Maleficent likes it, Regina thinks, then there can’t be much more to it than that. Because she loves Mal, of course she does. She likes sharp words and hot kisses and she can’t resist solid ground, and Maleficent is all three.

“How do you feel about…staying with me. For a - while.” She’s dancing round the words and they both know it. But they feel too heavy on Regina’s tongue, rigid and wooden.

“You’re very bad at saying what you mean,” Maleficent whispers.

“But you always seem to know what I mean anyway,” Regina counters, matching the volume on instinct.

“Mm,” Mal lets out, corner of her mouth ticking up slightly with what she hopes is fond amusement. “You don’t you have a ring, do you?”

“No,” Regina admits. “It - it only really occurred to me now.”

This is a lie and she wonders if they both know it. Regina’s been biding her time for what seems like years, they both have - leaning away from each other towards other people but only ever coming back together again. It’s never felt inevitable, only safe, like managing to pull out an umbrella in the middle of a storm.

“Well,” she says with a snort. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or not.”

“I don’t know either,” Regina says. A pause, then: “It can be a long engagement.”

“Very long,” Mal agrees. “Although sometimes it feels like all this time has been an engagement of sorts, anyway. Has it?”

Regina bites her lip. “Maybe.”

“Maybe.” Maleficent is still, just briefly, eyes roving over her face carefully, as though looking for something. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I will. I want to.” She shifts closer, nose brushing Regina’s. “And I want you to want to, too.”

Regina kisses her. “If I didn’t want to, would I ask you?”

“Yes,” Maleficent says knowingly. “You would.” Regina kisses her again, on impulse, not really sure why. Mal allows it for a few moments but then breaks away. “I want you to say it,” she says, words slow between their lips. “Regina, I want you to say it.”

“Say what?”

“Ask me properly.”

She takes a deep breath, forms the words in her head. “Mal Drake,” she says after what feels like an eternal silence, unable to keep the slightly mocking tone from her voice. “Will you marry me? Eventually? Even if we only get round to it when we’re both old and grey?”

Mal snorts again, pokes at Regina’s ribs. “How could I resist such romance?”

For a moment, Regina thinks briefly, inexplicably, of Emma Swan. Then, working hard to push her face out of her mind, she kisses Mal for the third time, and it’s definitely the charm, because they don’t talk again for the rest of the night.

 

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” her sister says over coffee in the kitchen. Regina blinks at her, bleary-eyed still from the morning, just barely awake. In the living room, she can hear Maleficent trying her best to carry a conversation with a characteristically reticent Elsa, and it’s going about as well as it always does, which is to say not at all.  

“Can’t you?” Regina asks, sipping at her own tea. She’s trying to cut her levels of coffee intake because Belle’s got into the habit recently of looking pointedly at her and saying in a very dignified tone of voice that there are a number of unhealthy chemicals in the average cup.  She doesn’t bother asking Zelena how she knows; her elder sister has the eyes of a hawk and Regina’s finally managed to find a ring that Maleficent didn’t think was too terrible to be wearing. It’s only a matter of time before the children notice, too, and she’s trying to work out whether it’s better to just tell them straight away. Either way, she knows it’ll be ugly.

“You’re biting the bullet at last,” Zelena says. “I’m almost proud.”

“I’m not _biting the bullet_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You make it sound like a chore.”

“Hm,” is all she gets in response, Zelena taking another drink from her coffee.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she says vaguely. “Have you heard from Emma at all?”

Regina sits up at the abrupt change of topic. “No. Why do you ask?”

She shrugs casually in a way that means she isn’t being casual at all. Regina hasn’t known her sister all her life, but in the time she has, she’s always found her all too easy to read, almost like an open book. She often wonders if it’s genes or intuition or something else entirely.

“The house feels a little different without her,” she says simply.

“Yes,” Regina admits eventually, after a long pause. “Yes, it does.”

“Still,” Zelena says. “With you and Maleficent set to tie the knot, the gaps will be filled, I’m sure.”

Regina shuts her eyes and sighs briefly at the brittle edge to Zelena’s tone, almost imperceptible. “Zelena,” she says. “What do you want from me, exactly?”

“I want for you to know what _you_ want,” Zelena says, voice suddenly sharp. “Because I don’t think you do.”

This is always where they fall out, the two of them. Zelena means well but pushes too hard and patronises her and Regina ends up closing herself off on instinct.

“I _think_ that I am an adult and don’t need anyone else to presume what it is that I do and don’t want,” she says, trying to keep her tone even but failing to keep the annoyance from her words entirely.

Zelena leans across the table towards her, moving as though to take her hand before thinking better of it. “Regina,” she sighs. “You and Mal…”

“ _What_?” Regina bites out. “Me and Mal _what_?”

There’s a long, painful silence as a silent war wages itself on Zelena’s face. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know how Emma felt about you,” she says at last.

Regina recoils at the words, something cold dropping into her gut. “ _What_?”

“Emma,” Zelena says, a bizarrely earnest expression on her face. “She adored you. You and the children both. And you -”

“And _why_ ,” Regina says, the words coming out cool and dangerous. “Does this have _anything_ to do with what we are currently talking about?”

Zelena opens her mouth to reply, then sighs and slouches slightly in defeat. “Nothing,” she says. “Forget I said it.”

But she can’t, now. She can’t. It’s like that night with Mal all over again, the _you must have known the girl was crazy about you_ and _you can’t blame her_ and the flurry of recollections that had come with the observation. Emma hasn’t quite faded from her immediate memory yet, and her mind is playing tricks on her all the time these days, conjuring up visions of her grin and the sound of her laugh.

“God,” Regina says, more to herself than her sister, staring at the thin white circle of the bottom of her mug, half covered in the last dregs of her tea. “It’s a mess. It’s a fucking mess.”

“You’re allowed to miss her, Regina,” Zelena says.

“Am I?” she asks wryly. The obliviousness is ebbing away by the second and leaving behind a yearning for something she doesn’t have that hasn’t felt so acute since she was discharged from the air force, coming home with shaking hands and dreams of deep red fire, leaving her two best friends behind in dusty desert and not realising that five years later she’d be burying them and mothering their child.

“Yes,” her sister tells her, and this time she does lean over all the way, instigating a rare contact between them as she covers Regina’s clenched fists with her own hands. “ _Yes_. She was your first friend, if nothing else. Your first proper friend since…”

“Since Marian,” Regina cuts in, voice defeated. “Since Robin and Marian.”

“Yes.”

“And look what happened to them,” she says, voice cracking on the last word before she can stop it. She’s watching her hands under Zelena’s, already beginning to shake. The contracting feeling is heading towards her like a slow, unstoppable train, curling up her spine and moving to her lungs, tightening, tightening, tightening. She’s ruined it again, she thinks. She’s ruined everything again.

“Regina,” Zelena’s voice says, sounding far away, as though from the other end of a long tunnel. “Regina. Darling.”

“No,” she lets out, feeling the word ripped from her throat. Tight, tight, tight, the world expanding and shrinking in a moment. The kitchen fills with rust and heat and Zelena’s voice overlaps with Robin and Marian’s, the cadences dredging themselves up from Regina’s memory to revisit her in laughs and shouts and whispers. Zelena isn’t where she was before, she’s behind her instead, arms wrapped around her waist and tight, tight, tight. Everywhere is tight. Regina is rooted where she is. She has to wait, she knows. She has to hold on and wait and feel her sister breathing behind her.

Seconds, minutes, Zelena’s voice saying _breathe with me_ , counting up to one hundred and back down again. “I’m fine,” she says at last, the words gravelly. She hasn’t moved an inch. Zelena’s hands are still around her waist, fingers spread across her stomach.

“Regina,” she breathes. “I didn’t mean to -”

“It wasn’t you,” she says. “It wasn’t you.” It never is. It’s never anything but Regina’s foolish head.

A sharp sound comes from Zelena’s throat, as though she wants to say something, but no words follow. Instead, she presses her lips to Regina’s temple and they breathe together until the tightness loosens. But Regina can’t stop thinking. She can’t stop thinking about how she danced with Emma Swan five nights before Christmas and she’s marrying Maleficent and how her daughters, all of them, are going to kill her when she tells them, and her sons probably won’t be much better.

This is how Regina is proven right: when she first tells the children, it’s with Mal in the room, and Mulan gets up very quietly and leaves the room. Regina doesn’t bother calling after her because if there’s one thing her and Mulan share, it’s the need to process things alone. For the next ten minutes things are highly uncomfortable.

“Congratulations,” Ruby says to them both, somehow managing to make the five-syllable word sound a lot shorter than it actually is.

“When?” Elsa inquires. Her face is devoid of emotion in a way that makes Regina’s heart sink. She glances at Mal, wary.

“We don’t know yet,” she says. “We’re thinking it’ll be - a long engagement.”

“So definitely after I’ve left for college?” Ruby asks, and Regina tries not to get too upset at the implication but fails, the words ending up stuck in her throat. Mal steps in smoothly.

“Yes,” she says with a firm, neutral nod. Ruby glares at her, then her gaze slips to Regina and softens into something different, softer but no less painful. She looks as though she’s about to say something honest, what she’s really thinking behind the barbed comments, but then her eyes move back to Maleficent and her face hardens again.

“I’m happy for you, Regina,” she says, not sounding happy at all. She glances at her cell phone. “I gotta go, I’m meeting Dorothy in a bit. See you later.”

Upon her departure, the children seem to shift slightly, discomfort intensified. Regina looks at their faces and feels like there’s a wound on her somewhere that she can’t close up. She’s ruined it again, she thinks. She’s broken whatever she was just starting to fix.

“Mom,” Henry says softly, and his eyes hurt but he’s trying to leave his face as open as it can be, her kind, sweet boy. “If you’re happy, we’re happy.” He leans forward and takes her hand in his, warmth pervading across their palms.

“And a wedding! Anna and I can wear pretty dresses!” Belle interjects optimistically. Regina lets out a shaky laugh, winding her fingers through Henry’s.

“Yes,” she says, reaching for her and tucking her under her arm. “As many pretty dresses as you want, _mija_.” It’s all she can promise at this point. She can’t say when or how long or even if she’s happy. When the children have left and it’s just her and Mal left in the living room, she lets out a shuddering sigh, feeling her body sink into the couch. Mal follows her, lean warm body against hers, and she shuts down the urge to shift away.

“That went well,” she says, amused. Regina squeezes her eyes shut.

“About as well as I could have hoped,” she replies.

“They really don’t like me,” Mal observes without a hint of self-pity, and Regina winces.

“They’ll come around,” she tries.

“It’s been years, Regina, don’t be silly. Besides, it’s not like I find them exactly tolerable myself. The younger ones maybe. But those older girls. Robots, sometimes. Can never tell what they’re thinking. I don’t know how you manage it.”

Regina doesn’t think she does manage it. She thinks the space between her and the children that was beginning to close since Emma’s arrival is just opening up again, and it’s her fault.

“Regina?” Mal’s voice brings her out of her thoughts, flings her consciousness back down onto the couch beside her. “What are you thinking of?”

Regina is thinking of Emma Swan. She seems to be doing that a lot recently. “Nothing,” she says hoarsely. “I’m - I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Mal says soothingly, taking her hand, clearly intent on easing the discomfort that she can sense coming off Regina in waves. “They will come around. Ruby’s - well, she’s a woman now. She won’t hold it against you forever.”

 _She’s a woman now_. Regina swallows. “Yes. I mean - no, she won’t. I don’t think she will.”

“And whilst we’re here and talking about all sorts of sobering topics -” Maleficent starts.

Regina sighs. “Mal. Don’t.”

“No,” she says firmly. “Mal, _do_ . Regina, you know as well I do that _this_ -”

“That _what_?”

“This _life_ you’re leading. You’re unhappy. You don’t sleep, you shake, you still have _panic_ attacks -”

Regina flinches. “Mal -”

“And I’m not foolish enough to think that marrying me, whenever that happens, is _ever_ going to just suddenly fix that. Because it won’t.”

“It can’t be _fixed_.”

“No,” she agrees. “But it can be made better. You can’t carry on like this.” She pauses and bites her lip. “I don’t want to marry you if you carry on like this.”

The words are strong and heavy, an ultimatum. “You know how I -” Regina struggles with her words. “You know I can’t - for God’s sake, look at me now. Do you expect me to just sit on a chair in an office and _talk_? When I don’t - when I can’t even - with _you_ , now -”

“I expect you to try,” Maleficent says softly. “And I think your children should expect the same.” She leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I found Archie’s number and I left it in the study,” she says, getting up. “Think about it.”

Regina remembers, briefly, Emma in her study, a hand on her shoulder, steady and firm. She’d been drunk, of course, horrendously so, still trying to use red wine to quell thoughts of Thanksgiving and the children and _they don’t love you, they don’t want you, what kind of mother are you anyway?_ . The Christmas party had been an attempted distraction. She’d known that the children had been shaken from Thanksgiving and she was trying to make up for it, somehow, with mixed results - and Emma, damn her, had seen right through it all. Even before it, she’d stood behind her and said _you’ve got me, for what it’s worth_. Then disappeared two weeks later without a word.

What she realises as she sits alone in the study later that evening is that _think about it_ is a silly request of Maleficent to make. It’s as though she doesn’t think about it every minute of every hour of every day. As though she’s managed to leave it behind her, somehow, or ignore it. Archie Hopper’s card sits presumptuously on her desk and she can’t stop looking at it. She’s scared. Her hands aren’t shaking and she can’t smell rust and Robin and Marian aren’t screaming in her head, but she’s scared. She’s so, so scared.

Zelena never knocks before coming into the study - whether to annoy her or because she simply doesn’t think of it, Regina doesn’t know. But her arrival is preceded, a little curiously, by the smell of freshly baked pie wafting through the air, and when her sister arrives it’s with Henry and Ruby in tow, both of them bearing two plates each with slices of what looks like apple pie on them. Their aunt is holding a tray of mugs of hot chocolate and smiling.

“Zelena,” Regina says in surprise. “Ruby, Henry. I -”

“Ruby - and Henry, of course - thought that maybe they received your...announcement today perhaps less well than they could have done. So, they made pie. And I made hot chocolate.”

“Oh,” she says. Henry is grinning, and there’s a tentative light in Ruby’s eyes that makes Regina shiver all over, and she waits only two seconds for her to set her two plates of pie down before rising quickly from her seat and walking over and wrapping her arms around her firmly.

“ _Mija_ ,” she says into Ruby’s ear, allowing herself this small show of affection. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruby murmurs, and it’s enough, she’s enough, Henry’s enough, all of them are. Regina could have only her children with her for the rest of her life and she knows immediately that that would be all she needed. And she doesn’t know how to say it, so she squeezes tighter.

“Mom? What’s this?”

She breaks briefly away from Ruby to look at Henry, but keeps her arms around her, still, the warmth of her almost addictive. He’s standing at her desk holding up the small white card that she’d been staring at for the best part of an hour before the three of them came in, and she panics a little despite herself.

“Ah…”

“It's Doctor Hopper’s card, darling,” Zelena says smoothly. “Mal picked it up for your mother when she was in town earlier today.”

Ruby shifts slightly in surprise and Regina looks at her to see wide, hopeful eyes. “For you?” she asks tremulously. “Mom?”

Regina clears her throat, feeling the resounding tenderness in her belly at the word _Mom_ in Ruby’s voice. “Yes,” she says. “For me.”

“And you’re gonna - call it?” Henry inquires haltingly.

Regina is scared, so, so scared. And she doesn’t want to call. So much of her doesn’t want to, because she can’t see what will come out of it. All she can see is her realising the extent of the damage that she’s done to herself and everyone else. All she can see is herself sitting in front of Archie Hopper and him asking her to talk and her not being able to find the words. But her sister is here with two of her children, and earlier they were angry at her, but then they made her apple pie and hot chocolate. And she loves them with every ounce of her pathetic, scarred, almost spent heart, and she’s tired of not knowing how to tell them so.

“Yes,” she says. “I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i APOLOGISE for all the dragon queen. my justification is my seemingly endless need to make everything As Realistic As Possible.  
> chapter title taken from 'something good'.


	5. love isn't love 'til you give it away

**PART V: LOVE ISN’T LOVE ‘TIL YOU GIVE IT AWAY**

**AS FAR AS** Regina’s aware, no one in the house is expecting anyone at eight on a Sunday morning, but the doorbell rings anyway, waking her abruptly from a mostly restless sleep. Maleficent shifts slightly beside her but doesn’t wake fully, and she grumbles inaudibly as she gets out of bed and feels the cold air nipping at her ankles. The bell rings again, sounding a little insistent, and Regina’s mutters take full shape.

“For God’s sake,” she lets out, shoving her feet into her slippers and rooting around for her dressing gown before rushing down. She’s reached the door by the time the bell has rung for the third time, and is vaguely aware of Ruby, Mulan and Elsa behind her - they’ve always been the lighter sleepers of the house. Pulling the door open, she takes a moment for her eyes to adjust briefly to the light from outside, made even brighter by the heavy snow, before alighting on the visitor.

All her innards seem to all drop downwards in surprise. “ _Emma_?”

And Emma Swan smiles, sheepish, cheeks pink from what Regina guesses is the cold, barely keeping in her shivers as melted snow drips from her hair, and she can’t keep from the pressure that she feels suddenly in her chest, like her heart might beat out of it at any point.

“Hi?”

“ _Emma_!” There’s the loud smacking of feet on marble just behind Regina, and she barely has time to move before Ruby is pushing past her and leaping towards Emma, almost knocking her over with the force of her embrace. “You’re here,” she says, barely audible with her face pushed into Emma’s jacket, and Emma laughs as Mulan and Elsa join them on the doorstep.

“Yeah, Red, I am. Woah, Elsa Mills, you are _heavier_ than you look -” Regina watches as the girls squeal and laugh and begin to talk loudly at Emma, watches the blonde’s soft, genuine smiles in response, and feels a vague of pang jealousy at the ease with which she handles all three of them, patient and careful, nodding at something Mulan says as she tucks a lock of hair behind Elsa’s ear. How is it Emma Swan has known her daughters for only a few months and is still a better mother to them than Regina could ever hope to be?

“Come inside,” Ruby says, tugging at Emma’s wrist.

“Uh, sure,” Emma replies, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she hesitates where she stands. Ruby’s hand has pulled her arm down so that her duffel bag is sliding downwards, and she pauses to readjust it. She looks at Regina, then continues, “if your mom doesn’t mind, that is.”

“Of course not,” Regina says, stepping sideways and suddenly realising how cold it is outside. “We’re hardly going to leave you out to freeze.” She’s avoiding eye contact with Emma even though she desperately wants to look at her anyway, and, at a slight loss for what to do, ends up turning on her heel and making a beeline for the kitchen and starting to make hot chocolate. The girls and Emma follow, talking noisily enough that she knows it can’t be long before even the younger ones and Henry - who are far heavier sleepers - will begin to come downstairs.

“Where did you go?” Regina hears Mulan ask. She freezes despite herself halfway through taking the milk out of the refrigerator, before schooling the reaction and taking the bottle back to the counter as usual. There’s a beat of silence in response to Mulan’s question that almost tempts Regina to turn around.

“I, uh, just needed to figure out some stuff. And I have a habit of disappearing when that happens, so…” Emma lets out a tight, uncomfortable laugh, and Regina fights the instinct to rescue her from the girls’ questioning. Because she wants to know where Emma went, too. And she’s angry, she realises with a jolt. She’s angry and a little hurt, and she has no idea what that means.

“And you didn’t tell us?” Elsa is like her in that she has a habit of sounding typically combative when really she feels upset and doesn’t want to show it. Regina knows the nuances in her voice, the ups and downs of it, and can sense the strain behind her words now, even in such a short phrase. She risks a glance backwards and sees that Emma can feel it too. She watches as her face scrunches up.

“No,” she says, eventually. “I didn’t. And I - I’m sorry. That was a di - something I shouldn’t have done. Really. But I needed to clear my head so I didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Do anything stupid?” Regina blurts out before she can stop herself. “Like what?”

Emma jolts slightly, as though surprised to hear Regina’s voice, and her eyes flit quickly between her and the hot chocolate she’s stirring before going back to her again. “I…”

“Girls,” Regina says, voice feeling oddly detached from the rest of her as she keeps her eyes trained on Emma, who is beginning to look more uncomfortable by the second. “Why don’t you go wake up the others. I’m sure they’ll be very excited to see that Emma’s home.”

The word _home_ slips out of its own volition, and by the time it’s been said it’s too late to take it back. AS the three girls obey Regina with a surprising lack of protest, she watches Emma’s expression sift through at least three different emotions, eventually settling on something between surprise and tenderness that conjures up too many sensations for Regina to even bother examining.

“So,” Regina says once they’re alone, soon finding the look on Emma’s face too much to bear and turning back to the counter instead, grabbing the slabs of chocolate that she’s taken from the cupboard and beginning to grate them. “You’re back.”

“Yeah.” There’s a slight rustle that Regina presumes signals Emma taking a step forward, but she keeps fixated solidly on the task at hand, determined not to look back around.

“You know,” Regina starts, before taking a breath and letting it out as a sigh, “if you wanted some kind of vacation, all you had to do was say.”

There’s a strangled noise from behind her that doesn’t quite qualify as a laugh, before Emma emerges into her peripheral vision. “I didn’t need a vacation.”

“You just needed to take off without a word to anyone and worry - the - the children out of their minds?” Regina retorts sharply. Emma winces.

“Okay, that was fair. You’re right. You - you should be mad, and -”

“I’m not mad, Emma,” Regina cuts in, her bones feeling suddenly far heavier with what she supposes is exhaustion. “I was. Not least because technically I’m your employer, and you just - leaving like that is a breach of the contract between us.”

“Yeah,” Emma says, stretching out the vowel sounds like a little kid. “There’s that too. I mean, if you want me to - you probably don’t want me back -”

“I do,” she says immediately. “I mean, we do. The children do.”

“Right,” she replies with an odd smile, then repeats, as though she knows something Regina doesn’t: “The children.”

Regina straightens and clears her throat, resumes the grating of the chocolate in an effort to quell the strange heat that’s beginning to cycle through her. “Did you figure it out?”

“Huh?”

“Whatever you left for. Did you figure it out?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Emma says slowly. “Yeah, I think so.”

“And am I allowed to know what it was?”

A long silence that seems to last forever. Regina’s just beginning to think that Emma won’t answer her at all before she hears a very quiet: “I think you already do.”

Regina feels everything around her shift slightly with the words, her mind struggling to regain balance. “Emma -”

“I mean,” Emma starts, her voice doing that thing where it goes a little higher with panic, signalling the beginning of one of her rambles. “I’m not - exactly - I’m not exactly subtle, Regina, or, I mean, I kind of thought I was subtle, at first, and then I realised that I’m, you know, not, so I probably - you probably -”

“Emma,” Regina says. Emma’s hands and eyes are frantic, earnest, and Regina has a fiancée sleeping in her bed upstairs and she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to do, she has no idea what to do.

“- so, I mean, I came back because, like, I missed the kids, but also - I mean, mostly because I missed the kids, actually, but also because I’m an adult, and so are you. And, uh, Mary Margaret said that I...shouldn’t run from my - problems. Not that you’re a problem. Just that this situation might be -”

“Emma,” she repeats, to her horror finding herself barely able to utter her name. Zelena and Maleficent talking about Emma’s feelings in her absence had been different, but now that they’re so palpable, so evident in the creases around her eyes and the open curve of her mouth, she can hardly bear it.

“ _Emma_!”

Regina’s saved by the pattering of her children’s feet coming into the kitchen; she hadn’t even heard them come downstairs.  

“You’re back! You’re back!” Roland screeches, catapulting himself into her arms. “Yesterday Henry and I did all our favourite things to feel better like you said! And it worked! It worked!”

“Oof,” Emma lets out dramatically, but her arms tighten around Roland and she can’t keep a smile off her face and she looks at him with so much love that Regina can’t keep her heart from aching. “It did work, lil one. I’m back.”

“To stay?” Henry asks, moving to slide a hand around Emma’s waist. She has to strain slightly to ruffle his hair, then places her chin on his head and looks at Regina.

“Yeah,” she says slowly, as though expecting to be stopped at any moment. “Yeah, to stay. For as long as you’ll have me, I mean.”

“Forever!” Anna cries, tugging at the hem of Emma’s jacket.

“Forever’s a long time,” Emma laughs.

“Exactly,” says Belle in response with a quiet smile. “Just long enough.”

“Regina? What’s all this noise ab - oh.” Zelena stops short, blinks in surprise, then seems to recover remarkably quickly and starts to grin. “Emma Swan,” she says. “Couldn't keep away, could you?”

There’s a weight to her words that makes Emma flush slightly and Regina suddenly can’t tear her eyes away from her.

“Something like that,” Emma says, recovering at last with a lopsided grin. “I just - needed a break. Well, I thought I did. But I missed these kids too much, I guess.”

“Yes,” Zelena says with a smile that Regina kind of wants to slap off of her face. “Well, it’s nice to have you back. Pancakes to celebrate, anyone? To go with the _chocolate caliente_ that your mother has already started on?”

There’s a unanimous chorus of joy in response to Zelena’s suggestion, and Regina rolls her eyes at her sister as she comes to join her at the counter.

“Yes, thank you for adding to my workload this morning,” she mutters. “I always love how you’re so willing to suggest what’s on the menu when you know you won’t be the one to make it.”

“Oh, but you _do_ ,” Zelena says with a wink. “Don’t forget to make a stack of blueberry ones, hm?”

Blueberry pancakes are Emma’s favourite. Zelena only knows this because one weekend she caught Regina studiously learning a new recipe for pancakes that she’d never done before for the children. She scowls.

“Shut _up_ ,” she mutters, going back to her chocolate grating with no little amount of violence. “And if you’re not going to be of any use, then leave.”

“If you insist, darling,” Zelena says in an insufferable tone of voice. “Children,” she says loudly. “How about you and Emma continue your catch-up in the living room?”

Emma lets herself be dragged out of the kitchen with fairly little protest, apart from to say laughingly, “Hey! Don’t pull my arm off my shoulder, kid,” to Anna as they exit.

Regina watches them go with another pang of what feels like longing. Her children’s enthusiasm for Emma Swan has always been unbridled, and Regina can’t resent them that, not when she’s subjected them to a string of nanny after nanny who couldn’t offer them anything in the way of true affection. But there’s a tiny part of her - maybe one that’s not even very tiny - that wants it desperately for herself. She wants Roland to hug her so hard he almost knocks her over and Elsa to bury her face in the crook of her neck and Ruby to tell her things that she isn’t sure she can tell anyone else.

But even so. She’s lucky to have them even as she is. She knows this. She knows it so well that she goes back to her pancakes and _chocolate caliente_ without even a flinch.

“So she came back,” Zelena says as soon as they’re out of the room. Regina forces herself not to react.

“Well observed, Zelena,” she says in as dry a tone as she can manage. “Do you have anything else to add? The sky is blue? Grass is green?”

“Such scalding words,” her sister says. “That engagement of yours as watertight as you thought it was?”

This time Regina does react, dropping the bowl of cornflour with a sharp clang. “Stop,” she says sharply. “Stop it, Zelena. I don’t know what _exactly_ you’re trying to prove, and I don’t care to know either. Maleficent and I are getting -” she halts abruptly, the word sharp in her throat. “Are getting -”

“Are getting what?” Zelena asks, words gentle but just as weighted as Regina’s. “You can’t even say it, Regina. You’ve been dancing around it for years. Isn’t this your happy ending? What are you so scared of?”

“God, Zelena!” she lets out a little more loudly than usual as she finally feels her temper slip from her clutches. “What is _wrong_ with you? When are you going to _stop_?”

“When I see you admit the truth,” Zelena says evenly.

Regina feels her jaw stiffen. “I love her.”

“Maleficent. You love Maleficent.”

“Of course. Of course I love her.”

Zelena snorts. “Darling,” she says. “You love _me_. Have you ever seen me proposing marriage?”

Regina grits her teeth, feeling the blood begin to flush out of her cheeks as she does so, and her sister sighs.

“I think, perhaps,” she says carefully, “that there’s no point in ignoring what’s right in front of you. Especially in exchange for something that ticks far fewer boxes. Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Regina?”

“Not particularly,” Regina says, trying to keep her tone as calm as possible. “No, I don’t.”

Zelena sighs, looking sad. The expression is one so rarely seen on her face that Regina has to blink a few times to adjust to the visual. “Because you don’t want to,” she conclude, moving to leave the kitchen as she does so. “I’m next door if you need anything.”

Regina sighs heavily as Zelena exits and decides to refrain from examining the feelings racing through her head as a result of her words, instead throwing herself back into the steady, simple method of making breakfast. She’s done with the first few stacks of pancakes and moving onto the blueberry batter when Maleficent pads into the kitchen, dressing gown wrapped tightly around her and hair still slightly mussed.

“Mm,” she says, moving in to press a kiss to Regina’s cheek as she reaches for the coffee press. “That smells good. Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Regina says a little absently, for some reason inclined to try avoiding Maleficent even though they’re the only two people in the room. A voice in the back of her mind keeps reminding her very calmly that Emma is just a room away, also adding, for some reason, that this is of the utmost importance.

“Blueberry pancakes?” Maleficent says, the words coming out as a question as she peers over Regina’s shoulder. “Who eats blueberry pancakes?”

Regina’s breath catches slightly in her throat. “Ah...Emma,” she says after a beat. “Emma does.”

Maleficent eyes her carefully. “Emma?”

“Yes.”

“Emma Swan.”

“Yes.”

“The Emma Swan who left the house several days ago.”

“Yes.”

“That Emma Swan.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re making pancakes for her, why?”  Mal’s tone borders on something dangerous, and Regina’s heard her use that voice before. It’s rarely directed towards her, but in this brief moment she can understand, even just slightly, why it is the children hate her.

“Because she came back,” Regina says, as steadily as she can manage. She’s an air force officer, she tells herself. She’s not about to be scared off by her moody fiancée.

“I’m sorry?”

“She came _back_ , Mal, is that really that difficult to process?”

“ _That_ isn’t,” Mal says grimly, as though she’d been expecting this all along. “And, you know, now I think of it, I suppose you bending over backwards to satisfy her as soon as she’s bothered to come back isn’t either.”

“Putting a handful of blueberries into some pancake batter isn’t _bending over backwards_ for anyone,” Regina retorts with a roll of her eyes. “Stop being so melodramatic.”

“Melo _dramatic_?” Maleficent hisses, taking a step towards her. “She’s in _love_ with you, Regina. Am I supposed to just -”

“Yes,” Regina says. “Yes, you are, because for one thing, Emma and I have known each other barely three months and for a third of that time we didn’t even speak to each other, so to suggest that she’s somehow _in love_ with me is _ridiculous_ -”

“Yeah, well, it only took _me_ two _weeks_ , if you care to remember. You’re really rather _easy_ to fall in love with,” Mal spits with venom, but the words shake at the end with vulnerability.

Regina glances over at the hurt painted across her expression and is overwhelmed with the sharp sensation of being trapped in a very difficult circumstance with no feasible way out. From the living room, laughter sounds, Emma’s immediately discernible as it rings high and clear in tandem with Ruby’s softer giggle. She feels her stomach lurch in response and immediately begins stirring the pancake batter in front of her in an attempt to distract from the responding curl of guilt that makes itself known afterwards. She proposed to Maleficent two nights ago. There’s a ring on her finger. That isn’t the kind of thing you can take back.

And Mal is safe, solid ground - has a coffee with two sugars every morning, spends long silent hours in the evening propped up on at least three pillows in bed reading through manuscript after manuscript, buzzes around parties and has something to say to everyone she meets; rarely eats pancakes, and when she does, they’re plain, never with fruit. Regina knows Maleficent off by heart and there is an understanding between them, the way they’ve seen each other at their best and their worst and every shade of grey in between. What does she have with Emma Swan, besides shared smiles over Roland’s antics and silly jokes on the couch and honest glasses of wine in her study? What could Emma Swan want with her? What could Emma Swan even know about what she wants?

“Maleficent...” Regina says at last, realising she’s been silent too long. The situation has already deteriorated too far for her to save, Maleficent standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a dark look in her eyes.

“Look at me,” Mal says, the words stiff and pointed with frustration. “ _Look_ at me, Regina.”

Regina does, swallowing. “I don’t know what you want from me,” she manages.

A long silence. “I don’t think I know, either,” Maleficent says at last.

Beside them, the pancake sizzles; Regina turns quickly to flip it. “I need to finish breakfast,” she says softly after doing so, acutely aware of Maleficent’s eyes trained steadily on her form.

“Yes,” Mal says, and there’s no anger left, only a sadness deep enough to make the guilt return full force. “You do.”

“Mal…”

“We can talk about it later,” she says. There is such intent in her eyes that Regina panics, slides the pancake off the pan and turns towards her, cupping her cheeks and moving to press their lips together firmly.

“I’m here,” she says as assuredly as she can. “I’m here.”

“Are you?” Mal asks, then winces, as though regretting the words. “Regina…”

“Yes?”

Mal sighs. “Finish breakfast,” she says. She doesn’t resist when Regina pulls her in for another kiss, but doesn’t quite respond, either - and that, Regina supposes in retrospect, is the beginning of the end.  

 

Regina runs into Emma in the hallway after a breakfast that featured the children far happier than they’d been in a while and the adults in a range of moods. Maleficent had been completely silent and Zelena a little quieter than usual too, leaving Regina and Emma to contribute to the conversation buzzing around the table.

So when she almost walks directly into Emma now, part of her head is still sitting there, marvelling at how easy it had been, teaming up with Elsa in an argument with Emma, teasing Ruby about Dorothy, smiling longer and wider than she can remember smiling in a long while.

“Oh,” Regina lets out when their shoulders brush, blinking slightly. “Sorry.”

“No problem,” Emma says with a smile, though her eyes seem slightly distant. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

She clears her throat. “Settling back into your room?”

“Yeah,” Emma replies with a nod, not looking right at her, eyes shifting away. “Yeah. Just - gonna get some sheets.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Regina clears her throat again, discomfort creeping up her spine. They’re standing a little too close together but she can’t bring herself to move away. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair, then,” she says with slight reluctance, but doesn’t move. Emma is staring at her, but almost like she’s not even there at all.

“Where’s your ring?” she blurts out suddenly just as Regina is beginning to find the silence unbearable.

“What?”

“Your -” Emma cuts off awkwardly, takes a breath. “The children told me,” she says. “About you and Maleficent.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” Emma coughs. “Congratulations.”

“Emma…” Regina falters, feels any vaguely solid ground that she might have had begin to shift and crumble from beneath her feet. “Why did you come back?”

“What?”

“You never said,” she says, fully aware of the self-destructive behaviour that she’s indulging in. “You never said why you came back, I mean. Or why you - why you left.”

Emma’s eyes gain a sudden clarity, her face abruptly more guarded. “It doesn’t matter now,” she says in a soft kind of tone that makes Regina’s muscles freeze up slightly. “The reason doesn’t even exist any more.” A pause. Regina counts three loud, heavy heartbeats echoing in her own ears before Emma continues, “I should - go.” She brushes past without another word, leaving Regina standing alone in the hallway and overwhelmed with a rush of feeling. She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there when the sound of movement from behind her jolts her out of her trance, and she turns to face it.

“Hey, Regina,” Elsa says, exiting her and Mulan’s room and surveying her curiously. “Y’okay?”

“Hm?” Regina blinks, not expecting the address. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Elsa’s expression is slowly verging into one of concern, and she takes an unsteady step closer. Regina wants to let her. She wants to say _no_ and have an excuse to hold her daughter. And she almost does. Instead, she says, without quite knowing why: “I have my first session tomorrow.”

“Session?” Elsa cocks a brow. “Therapy session?”

“Yes. Yes, therapy session.”

“Okay. How do you feel about it?”

Regina’s brow furrows in thought. “I...I’m not sure. I’m not sure how I’m meant to feel about it.”

This time, Elsa moves forward with purpose, letting out a soft laugh through her nose as she does so. “Mom. Therapy’s, like, the one thing where the point is you’re not _meant_ to feel anything. Apart from what you already do. You know?”

She’s silent for a moment, lets herself breathe and take her daughter in. “Yes,” she says. “You’re right.”

Elsa smiles, just fleetingly, but genuine all the same. Regina breathes again, thinks how she’s always been like this, serious eyes and lips turned down at the corners.

“I usually am,” she says, then she takes Regina by surprise and goes in quickly for a hug, squeezing a little too hard, as though unsure how to manage the contact properly.  “I’m glad,” she murmurs, lips by Regina’s ear. “I’m so glad you’re getting help.”

“Elsa,” Regina breathes, rubbing at her back. “Darling - you know it might not...it might not work.”

Elsa moves to pull away, but Regina tightens her hold on her waist, keeping her close, and they end up staring at each other intently. Her daughter’s always been naturally tall, and now Regina almost has to look up, not down, for proper eye contact.

“Mom,” she says slowly, the word steady in her voice, affection just hiding behind it. “It’s not about _working_. I don’t - it’s not like you need to be fixed.” She looks suddenly embarrassed, doubtful of what she’s saying. “You’re just - you know, you’re not that happy. Or whatever. And this is, like, a starting point.”

Regina breathes, and breathes, and breathes. “How did I manage to find a daughter as clever as you?” she murmurs with a soft smile. Elsa leans backwards a little, looking even more embarrassed than before, but there’s a smile playing on her lips.

“Mom,” she says, sounding her age for once. “Stop being weird.”

“Weird?” Regina says, suddenly grinning. “Me? I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about.” Quickly, before Elsa can shift away, she digs her fingers into her ribs, knowing that it’ll elicit a screech of laughter.

“ _Mom_!” Elsa lets out, jumping slightly, but she’s laughing, and Regina’s emboldened by their contact, grabs her waist again and pulls her in. “Stop!”

“No,” Regina says with a grin, “no, no, no, no, _no_.” She presses her nose to Elsa’s cheek and dropping the sloppiest kiss she can onto it before moving to dot more across her forehead and on her nose before Elsa can squirm away with another laughing protest.

“You’re gross,” Elsa tells her with a breathless grin, but she softens the blow by leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to Regina’s cheek. “Wanna come hang out with us downstairs?”

Regina can’t stop smiling and she can barely find the words to respond to Elsa’s request. “Yes,” she manages at last, still beaming. “Yes, I do.”

“Cool,” Elsa offers her a smile. “I think Roland and Henry are playing the piano. Or, like, Henry’s playing the piano and Roland’s sitting near the end and playing random notes. I’m just gonna get my books and stuff and I’ll see you there.”

“Okay,” Regina replies. She wants to pull Elsa in for another hug, but if she does she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to let go. Instead, she takes her hand and squeezes. “See you in a sec.”

She drifts downwards in a good mood that only seizes her with more intensity upon the sight of Henry trying patiently to teach Roland how to play a C Major scale.

“So you just play all the notes - no, Ro, not the black ones.”

“Why?”

“We’ve said this before,” Henry says with the long-suffering sigh of an educator trying to do his best with a difficult student. “The black keys are different.”

“Why?”

“Because, _corazon_ ,” Regina says, stepping inside and looking at him seriously. “We save the black keys for special occasions.”

“Special?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“ _Because_ ,” Henry says, clearly irritated. Regina fights back a smile and gives him a look instead.

“Because they make everything sound different,” she says simply. “When we add a black key, it changes what everything sounds like.”

“Why?”

Henry lets out another huff, and Regina has to actively contain the snort that threatens to arise, instead offers him a quick grin as Roland stares aggressively at the piano in front of him.

“Because that’s how the piano is built to sound,” she says, vaguely aware that the lesson is slipping steadily from one of musicality into one of engineering, the latter of which she has absolutely no clue about.

“Look,” she says, shifting Roland slightly to sit beside him on the stool just as Elsa enters the room and seats herself beside Ruby and Mulan on the couch. “This is a C Major scale, the one your brother was trying to show you.” She plays a quick one. “Now, when we put in one of these black notes, it makes a completely different scale. See?” She adds in a sharp, playing G Major instead. Roland stares at her open-mouthed.

“Mama,” he says.

“Mm?”

“Really good.”

“What’s really good?”

“You. Your song is nice.”

Regina can’t resist laughing now, and even Henry smirks a little, frustration momentarily forgotten. “Not quite a song, _corazon_. These are scales. You learn them so you know how songs are built.”

“Oh.” Roland is silent, briefly, as though considering this, then looks up and says: “Play a song, Mama?”

She blinks, a little surprised, then glances towards the piano warily. Her fingers rest as comfortably on the keys as they’ve always done, but the rest of her is acutely aware of how she hasn’t played in years, of how horribly wrong this could go.

“Ah…”

“You don’t have to, Mom,” Henry says quickly, always keen to appease. She turns to offer him a reassuring smile, and as she does so, notices that the girls are watching her intently from where they’re sitting. It sends a pulse of adrenaline through her veins. Stage fright, she thinks wryly.

“No, it’s...it’s okay,” she says after a moment. “I’m just trying to think of something I might actually remember.”

“Your music is on the shelf,” Mulan says softly. Regina looks around to the bookshelf situated against the wall directly beside the piano, and sure enough, notices that all her music is neatly placed on one of the shelves.

“Oh,” she says. “Has it always been there?”

“Keeps it safe,” Ruby says with what’s meant to be a nonchalant shrug, but she’s watching Regina intently.

“Ah.” She bites her lip, shuffles through the music before settling on one piece. “How about some Brahms?”

“What’s Brahms?”

“He’s a composer.”

“Funny name,” Roland comments. “What’s composer?”

“Someone who writes music,” Regina says. “Don’t they say that in Little Einsteins?”

“Little Einsteins about rockets, Mama. Not ‘posers.”

“Right,” Regina says. “Of course. Well, Brahms wrote a lullaby. For babies.”

“What lullaby?”

She places a rough approximation of his lullaby, clearly recognisable enough for Roland’s face to light up. “I know this song!”

“Yes.”

“Play more!”

“More Brahms?”

She hesitates, plucking out the second movement of one of his _Klavierstücke_. None of Brahms’ pieces have meant something utterly significant to Regina, and she hopes that this makes him a safe option. Once she starts, it only takes about ten bars of playing for Roland to lose interest and wander out of the room, but she can feel eyes from the couch trained on her back, and pushes herself to keep playing. She’s almost finished when there’s the tread of footsteps coming back towards the door.

“Mama’s playing Rarms and it’s boring. Wanna watch TV,” Roland informs Emma, whom he has in tow, loudly. Regina stops playing immediately the moment she sees her, suddenly extremely embarrassed.

“Oh - sorry,” Emma says, turning a faint shade of pink. “I didn’t realise you were - in here - I mean, you were playing, in here -” she halts, catching sight of the children sat further inside. “Roland didn’t tell me we were interrupting something,” she says very quietly.

“You weren’t,” Regina replies, for some reason feeling the need to stand up, doing so too quickly, and toppling the music off the piano with the force of her movement. There’s an extremely awkward pause as it rustles to the ground, and the awkwardness only increases as both her and Emma dive in to retrieve it, ending up nose to nose very quickly. Regina finds herself almost immediately deprived of breath in response to their close proximity, and there’s a moment where she briefly forgets even her own surname before Emma springs up, sheet music in hand.

“Sorry,” she says, and perhaps there’s a part of Regina that’s a little satisfied to hear the breathlessness in her voice.

“Don’t worry,” Regina replies, taking the music from her and fully aware that she’s staring but rather unable to stop. “It’s fine. You’re fine.”

“Regina,” a voice calls from the hallway outside, punctuated by the sound of the front door clicking shut. “We’re back from the park! The three of us played a _lot_ of catch -” Maleficent stops short at the door, Belle and Anna behind her.

“Mommy?” Anna pokes her head around Maleficent’s body, edging her way inside. “What are you doing?”

“Yes,” Maleficent says, surveying the scene in front of her carefully with her eyes finally coming to settle on Emma and Regina, still stood by the piano with the sheet music between them. “What are you doing?”

“Mal -”

“I just remembered I have a business call to make,” Mal says shortly. “If you’ll all excuse me. See you at dinner.”

Regina watches her go, defeated, then looks back at the children’s faces and hides a wince. Ruby in particular is eyeing her shrewdly, gaze shifting between her and Emma as though they’re both pieces of a puzzle in her head that’s finally coming into place. She feels everything begin to press down on her heavily, Emma’s green eyes and the hurt corners of Maleficent’s mouth and all her children in one room watching her, waiting for what’s coming next. And the same overwhelming knowledge that she’ll ruin it again - destroy it, like she does everything, reverberates so heavily around her brain that suddenly she can’t stand to be in the room any longer.

“I need to - go,” she pushes out briefly. “Go get started on dinner. How about you - you all put on a movie?”

This is evidently the right thing to say, as it begins a flurry of discussion amongst the children that allows Regina to escape with relatively little incident. She retreats immediately to the kitchen, which is entirely dark, grips the counter and tries to will the broiling panic in her stomach to subside a little.

“Regina?”

“Just what I need,” she mutters under her breath. Emma emerges, face not entirely visible in the darkness but concern still leaking from every feature.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Regina.”

“I _am_.”

“Are you?”

“I’m not having a - a _panic attack_ , if that’s what you’re asking,” she bites out, tone scalding in her defensiveness. “So no need to worry. You don’t need to check on me. Relieved of your duty.”

“You know that’s not what this is,” Emma says calmly. “Just because you’re not hyperventilating doesn’t mean I can’t worry.”

Regina looks away sharply, making a beeline for the refrigerator in an attempt to keep from having to look at Emma. “Miss Swan, you’re employed to worry about my children, not me.”

“ _Miss_ _Swan_? Really? That’s a thing now?”

Regina can’t answer straight away. She doesn’t know what’s a thing now and what isn’t. She knows that Maleficent is upstairs, upset, and she is downstairs, standing opposite Emma Swan, who, inexplicably, feels something for her. And she knows that there’s more being left unsaid than said and she knows that she doesn’t know anything at all.

She sighs, defeated. “Emma,” she says, the word coming out barely audible. “What do you – what do you _want_?”

Emma looks at her for a long moment, then says: “I don’t know.”

Regina lets out something that could almost be a laugh, if the situation wasn’t so lacking in humour. “Well,” she says on an exhale. “That makes two of us.”

She’s hurting everyone, she’s hurting everyone, she’s doing it again. When Regina sleeps she dreams too often of people turning to grey ash the moment she touches them; the children, Robin, Marian, Maleficent, every soldier who had been in the company she’d commanded. She dreams of things bursting into violent red flames the moment they make contact with her fingers. Regina stands and looks at Emma Swan and wonders if her dreams are that far from reality.

“You know I’m the worst possible person...” she starts to murmur after long moments of silence punctuated by the ticking of the clock. “You can’t possibly want me.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Emma whispers, taking a daring step forward. Her closeness is intoxicating. Regina feels a desperate urge to reach for her, run her fingers across her skin.  

“Maybe you don’t know what you want,” Regina answers, willing herself away.

“Maybe I do.”

“Maybe you don’t _understand_ ,” she says with a little more urgency. And the worst part of it all is that part of Regina doesn’t _want_ Emma to understand. She wants ignorance. She wants Emma how she is now, standing and looking at her with unflinching desire fixed on her face. She wants to be selfish and destructive and to let everything catch fire and say _so what?_

“Maybe _you_ don’t,” Emma retorts, looking slightly annoyed now. “Maybe I’m seeing you differently than you see yourself. Maybe everyone is seeing you differently than you see yourself.”

“And maybe how you’re seeing me is _wrong_.”

“Why would I be wrong? Why is it so impossible that I’m just able to _see_ you and want that?”

“Why _would_ you be able to see me? You’ve known me three _months_ ,” Regina snaps, finding Emma’s steadfast belief in her desirability suddenly unbearable. “Long enough to, what, see me have a dozen panic attacks? Extract my family history from the neighbourhood gossips? Notice how I’m not even – how I’m not even capable of being a good mother to my own children?”

“Stop it,” Emma says, voice shaking slightly, but Regina never leaves a job half-done, won’t leave this until she’s ruined it completely.

“No,” she says, voice firm and detached. “No, Emma. _This_ is who I am. I’m – I’m a retired military officer with enough demons in my head to fill this entire house. I can’t get through a single _day_ without that following me around. I can’t even communicate with my own children properly, and in a matter of – _hours_ I have managed to alienate a woman who has loved me for years, even before I was anything like I am now. And that...you can’t possibly want that. You’d be insane to want it.”

“Emma! The movie is starting!”

Both of them jump in unison at the sound of Henry’s voice, and Regina feels her heart lurch, ricocheting abruptly in between her throat and her stomach.

“We’re watching _Zootopia_ ,” Emma tells her unnecessarily.  

“Ah,” Regina says, shifting to the cupboard nearest to her to begin to take out a pan. She’d planned on just reheating leftovers from last night, but casserole is Maleficent’s favourite, and she supposes this can be the first in the long line of apologies that she’ll be owing her for the foreseeable future.  “Belle has always adored the rabbit.”

“Yeah, so does Elsa,” Emma says. “Something about positive female role models, or something.”

“She’s right.” Regina looks up, but only for a second, knowing that to do so for longer is far too dangerous. “You should go and watch it with them.”

“Emma! Come on! You’re gonna miss the beginning and no one wants to explain it to you!”

This declaration is clearly from Ruby. Emma’s eyes flit to the door centring back on Regina.

“Go,” she implores softly.

Emma opens her mouth as if to say something, then closes it with a frown, and exits the kitchen swiftly. Regina lets out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.

 

“So how was it?”

“What?” Regina inquires, though she knows perfectly well what Zelena is talking about. Predictably, her elder sister just offers her an unimpressed look in response.

“You’re so _annoy_ ing,” she drawls, kicking her shin. They’re indulging in a rare moment alone, with Emma occupying the children and Maleficent having gone out.

“I get it from you,” Regina replies with a quick grin. She’s rewarded with a hard elbow to the ribs. “Ow.”

“Tell me.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Isn’t there?”

“I don’t know,” she admits with a sigh. “It didn’t go well, but it didn’t go badly, either.”

“It is your first session,” her sister acknowledges.

“Exactly,” she says. “He was - well, I don’t know, I guess he was just how - therapists are. There was a lot of asking me how I...felt.”

Zelena snorts. “Oh, the horror.”

“You’re obnoxious.”

“And you love it.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“You do. Continue your story, please.”

“It’s not a _story_ , Zelena,” Regina huffs.

“Continue your recount, please. And stop trying to put off telling it to me. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“I liked you better when you were reading. How is _David Copperfield_ going, by the way?”

“Swimmingly. He does go on quite a bit, though.”

“That’s Dickens.”

“Mm. You’re still not avoiding my question.”

“I’m not _trying_ to avoid it. I just - don’t know what you want me to say. He was kind of annoying, I guess. Even things I would say casually he would go back to and say _‘let’s explore that further’_.”

Zelena hums in thought. “Did he write it all down?”

“No, actually. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Neither.”

Regina sighs, slumps against Zelena, who shifts to wrap her arms around her. “I’m worried,” she confesses after a long stretch of silence spent with her head resting against her sister’s sternum.

“You? Worried? Now _there’s_ a surprise.”

Regina slaps her thigh gently. “You’re so _annoy_ ing,” she mimics.

“Oh, shut up. What are you worried about? Apart from your multiple girl problems?”

“Zelena -”

“Yeah, whatever, won’t mention the fact that you’re at the apex of an _epic_ love triangle -”

“ _Zelena_!”

“- and your life is steadily becoming as dramatic as reality television. What are you worried about?”

Regina pauses, wondering how best to express herself. “I - I didn’t really feel anything. Today. With Archie.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean - I didn’t feel any better. Afterwards. I think I might have felt worse.”

“Ah.”

“The children all think this is me getting help,” Regina murmurs.

“Well, it is, isn’t it?”

“They think this is me getting better.”

“Regina -”

“I can’t be what they want,” she says in a strained voice. “I can’t be better how they want.”

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” Zelena says, pushing Regina off her to look directly at her with a serious expression on her face. “Firstly, you’re _never_ going to feel anything revelatory after _one_ session of therapy, no matter how good Archie Hopper is. If you suddenly felt better than you probably didn’t actually need him in the first place. You’ve had PTSD for a _decade_ , Regina. Longer than that. That’s a lot of therapy sessions.”

“I know,” she breathes as Zelena cups her cheek, pushing back a tendril of hair behind her ear. The gesture is so tender, such a typical thing for Zelena to do when no one’s watching and when Regina needs her, that she feels like crying. “I know, but the children -”

“The children know that too,” she says. “Of course they do. They’re your children. They’re _Mills_ children. You can’t possibly be trying to tell me that they’re stupid. Your daughter’s sent an application off to Brown, for Christ’s sake.”

Regina lets out a laugh that sounds far too much like a sob but feels her heart expand with pride slightly at the words _Mills children_. “No. They’re not. They’re not stupid at all.”

“ _And_ , you idiot,” Zelena says, flicking Regina’s cheek with her nail, “you _are_ what they want. You’re their mother.”

She stiffens slightly. “Me just being their mother doesn’t mean anything.”

“No,” Zelena agrees after a moment. “You being a mother who loves them does, though.”

“Love isn’t enough.”

Zelena stares at her for a long while. “You’re enough,” she says eventually, voice firm. Regina breathes in sharply.

“Zelena…”

“No. No, listen to me, you are.” Zelena’s face is determined. “I didn’t have our mother growing up, but you did, and you know she was terrible. She was. No, let me _finish_ , Regina. Even I know Cora was an absolute bitch, and she’s enough to give you issues even _without_ you having gone to fight in bloody Iraq, but now you’re _here_ . You’re here and you’re _enough_.” She stops, face morphing into an expression of distaste. “God, I hate these pep talks.”

“You don’t need to -”

“Yes, I do, because I don’t know who else you’re going to listen to. So _listen_ . You love these children so much and you give them _all_ of you and they know it. They _know_ that they’re loved every single day. Look at Roland -”

Regina takes in a sharp breath, but Zelena only grips her hands tighter and carries on.

“That boy has never gone a moment in his life feeling like he isn’t loved. And even though you feel - I don’t know, you feel _guilty_ -”

“Zelena,” Regina says, the word cracking in the middle but a warning nevertheless, because it’s not just guilt she feels. It’s a crippling lack of uselessness, it’s how she’s going to have to sit Roland down one day and explain to him where his parents are, explain to him that they died in a war they didn’t have to die in and Regina wasn’t there to save them. It’s the horror that arrests her every time she looks at Roland smiling and sees Marian in his face instead, how he likes his eggs sunny side up just how Robin did.

“But you can’t feel guilty. Regina, you weren’t even _in_ the army by the time they -”

“Stop,” Regina whispers. “Stop it.”

Zelena looks up and her face softens. “I didn’t -”

“I know it’s stupid,” she says. “But I can’t stop thinking it. I can’t stop thinking about…”

“Forget I said it,” Zelena murmurs, moving a hand to cup her cheek. “What matters is you’re here. And so are your children. You _love_ them. And just because - I don’t know, you find it hard with them, or you don’t know what to say to them sometimes, doesn’t mean that’s changed. What you give them is enough, it’s more than enough.” Zelena is silent for a while, eyeing her carefully, then says: “And it’s more than enough for anyone else you want to give it to, too.”

Regina shifts back slightly. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about girl problems,” she says, trying to keep her voice as light as possible.

“This is different to girl problems, don’t you think?” Zelena inquires, raising an eyebrow. When Regina doesn’t answer, she lets out a sigh. “You’re not trapped, you know. You still have choices.”

“I shouldn’t feel like this.”

“Maybe not. But you do.”

“No, I…”

“Regina,” Zelena says in a soft voice. “You should see the look on your face when Emma walks into a room.”

Regina feels her cheeks begin to heat up. “I don’t -you’re making it sound like some big deal. She...she came here three months ago. We barely know each other.”

“But you _want_ to know each other. You want her. Don’t you?”

“It’s not about what I _want_ ,” Regina says, a little flustered at Zelena’s voicing of feelings that she hasn’t even had the gall to acknowledge to herself yet. “It’s about…”

Zelena leans back on the couch, an amused glint in her eye. “About…?” she says with a flourish of one hand.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” She arches an eyebrow as she reaches back for her copy of _David Copperfield_. “Have you ever considered that you and Maleficent having this delightful on-again off-again relationship for the majority of your adult lives doesn’t mean she’s _actually_ the best option? What are you so afraid of?”

Regina is afraid of everything. She wakes up and everything terrifies her, how her children are growing up too quickly, how she doesn’t know if she’ll get through the day without some kind of panic, how the sun is shining too brightly and the world is living too well without her and she is trapped too deep inside her own head to ever make the most of it. And she’s terrified of the blank page that Emma Swan is, of the blank page that they could be. She’s terrified because its cleanness will seduce her and she’ll turn it to ashes in no time at all.

“She’s too good for me,” she says, because she doesn’t know how to say anything else.

Zelena snorts. “Darling,” she drawls. “We share genes. No one’s too good for _us_.”

Regina sighs as she watches her sister leaf open her book to the page she was last on, and is almost fooled into thinking that this signals the end of the conversation, before she says:

“Maleficent is my friend, but you’re my sister. Which means for some reason, since we’re biologically related or whatever, I’m more inclined to see her hurt than you. But you need to figure it out, Regina. So figure it out.”

 _If only it were that easy,_ Regina thinks.

 

Things with Maleficent have been excruciatingly difficult recently, perhaps for the reason that there hasn’t been any conversation about things, big or small, beyond their original one the day that Emma came back. They seem to be speaking without the right words, hoping that the translation of what they mean might seep through; Maleficent says _I have work_ and it means _I’m upset_ and Regina says _I made casserole_ and it means _I’m sorry_ and they both say _Good night_ and it means _what went wrong?_ Sometimes Mal will turn over in the dark so she’s hovering over her, side pressed onto Regina’s. Regina watches her eyes in the dark, just discernable, and doesn’t protest when she kisses her with a near-fury, hot and burning and desperately firm. It doesn’t change anything. Regina is still unable to keep her eyes off of Emma Swan in a room, and sometimes in moments of silence she hears Zelena’s voice echoing between her ears; _figure it out, Regina, figure it out, Regina, figure it out, figure it out, figure it out_.

“Come and play soccer with us,” she says one afternoon. It’s cold but clear and she feels like she’s spending too much time in the house, wandering around and feeling emptier by the minute.

Maleficent looks up. “Soccer?” she repeats disbelievingly. “And what makes you think that I’ve _ever_ enjoyed soccer, or ever will?”

Regina thinks of Emma, of the way she can’t play soccer to save her life but willingly made an utter fool of herself the first time the children asked her to, back in October when autumn was still crisp and palpable. She thinks back to how she’d struggled to keep from smiling even then, watching Emma lose her balance and almost topple over after kicking the ball a little too hard, and wonders abruptly if she’s always been so smitten. She clears her throat.

“I don’t know,” she says to Mal. “I just thought you’d like some time with me and - the children. You are meant to be their - their…”

Mal arches an eyebrow. “Their what?” she inquires coldly.

Regina sighs, suddenly exhausted. “You know what.”

“I don’t,” Mal says. “Let’s not fool ourselves, Regina. If you think your children would even let me come within an _inch_ of being their - _stepmother_ -”

“Mal,” Regina says, knowing the injury in Maleficent’s eyes isn’t anything to do with how the children feel about her. “I’m trying. I am.” She forces herself to move closer and take her hand.

Maleficent grips back tightly, the annoyance seeping from her face and leaving the hurt behind it. Regina’s seen more hurt on her face in this past week than in ten years. The pain is too odd to look at, like a painting done in all the wrong colours.

“I know you’re trying,” Mal says, voice dangerously shaky. “But you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to _try_. You should just... _we_ should just…”

“Mal -”

“Come,” Maleficent says firmly, stopping herself. “Let’s go and play soccer. Or perhaps you can play soccer and I can watch.”

“I…”

“Regina,” she says, looking as tired as Regina feels. “It’s fine. We’ll figure it out. Let’s just…”

“Regina!” Emma’s voice calls from downstairs. “We’re ready!”

Maleficent’s face hardens and Regina feels her stomach lurch with something like guilt. “Ah,” she says. “I see.”

“She always plays with us - them,” Regina manages after a brief few seconds. “It’s not like…”

“Not like...?” Maleficent pulls away, crossing her arms. “What is it _not_ like, Regina?”

“Mom!” Henry’s voice now, far more insistent. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, darling,” Regina replies, automatically, still holding Mal’s gaze.

“Is Mal coming?” A long pause as Regina finds she’s lacking an affirmative response and instead just looks at Maleficent instead, vaguely imploring.

“Tell him no,” Maleficent says softly. Regina takes in a sharp breath.

“No, sweetheart,” she calls back. “Just - just me.”

“Okay,” Henry responds. Then, clearly unsettled by something in her voice, he adds: “Don’t worry about it, Mom, if Mal doesn’t - I mean, with just you and Emma it means it’s even! Since Roland doesn’t really actually play...uh...but it’s cool!”

“Yes,” says Mal quietly, the words sharp. “With you and Emma, it’s just perfect.”

Regina feels at this point like a broken record. “ _Maleficent_ -”

“No. Don’t,” she says harshly. “Go with them. We’ll talk later.”

Regina has to obey, straightening her spine as she makes her way down the stairs a few seconds later and smiling at the children.

“Ready?” she asks, trying to keep her voice as upbeat as possible. “Coats, everyone?”

“Coats, scarves, gloves, appropriate footwear, all done, don’t worry,” Emma says with a smile from behind the huddle, arching up to meet Regina’s eyes. Seeing her sends another shot of guilt through her, met by an equal dose of - _something_. Something that means she once she starts looking, Regina can’t stop. “We’re ready if you are. Regina?”

“Yes,” Regina says with a blink. “Ready. Let’s go.”

It’s cold enough that the walk to the park has most of the children shivering halfway, and even Emma looks a little miserable, hands shoved deep into her coat pockets and beanie pulled all the way over her ears, so Regina takes it upon herself to warm them up.

“Right!” she says, pushing a smile onto her face. “We’re going to race the rest of the way there.”

Elsa squints at her, unimpressed. “Why would we do that?”

“ _Because_ ,” she says, pulling Belle closer to her by wrapping her arm around her tighter, “it is _cold_. And if we do this, we won’t have to warm up by the time we get there.”

“Running is terrible,” Emma says flatly. Regina glares.

“Thank you for your contribution,” she says haughtily, but she can’t quite keep a smile from the edges of her voice. “But it is _not_ appreciated. And just for that, you can carry Roland on your back for half the way.”

“What!” Emma exclaims, eyes widening. “No! The kid’s heavy!”

Roland turns around, looking offended. “Am not,” he says, brows creasing. “Hen says I’m small ‘n’ sneaky.”

“He’s right, _mi cielo_ , you are,” Regina tells him with a smile. “So you can sneak your way into winning this race, anyway. When you get tired, Emma will carry you.”

“Since when are you the fitness expert, anyway?” Emma inquires bitingly. Regina gives her a stare.

“I think you’re forgetting, Miss Swan, that I was part of the military for several years. And much of being able to do _anything_ involved having to be as fit as possible.”

Emma’s eyes brighten with coy interest, a smirk edging its way onto her face. “Oh, really? And how fit is that?”

Regina licks her lips, suddenly shivery with slow heat. “I’d be happy to take you through it...” she starts, suddenly aware of how much lower her voice has gotten in the space of two seconds.

“Oh, no, please don’t,” Henry interjects, clapping his hands over his ears. Ruby looks similarly revolted. Regina watches Emma’s cheeks flush and is vaguely aware of the tips of her own ears doing something very similar.

“Uh - anyway,” Emma says, clearly working very hard to avoid any further eye contact with her. “How ‘bout that race, huh?”

Mulan wins by a significant distance, having lost any potential competitors the moment Emma started tottering around comically with Roland on her back, complaining loudly about how old she is and how heavy Roland is and how she has no balance whatsoever. It pulls breathless laughter from Belle and Anna and grins from their older siblings, Ruby taking particular delight in poking at Emma’s ribs and calling her grandma.

They’re far warmer once they arrive in the park, and after playing a full game of soccer (in which she is exceedingly competitive and alternates between shouting a lot at Elsa for being a substandard goalkeeper, laughing with Henry at Emma’s lack of coordination, scoring an excessive amount of goals to Ruby’s absolute chagrin, and occasionally lifting Roland onto her shoulders as she does a victory lap across the pitch, letting him crow joyously), she retreats to lean against a nearby tree, chest heaving, and leaves the children to their own devices, which seem to be attempting to teach both Henry (who is just as terrible at soccer as Emma) and Roland how to kick a ball properly. To her simultaneous horror and slight thrill, Emma comes to join her a few seconds later, cheeks red from exertion.

“I always forget how good you are at that,” she pants by way of greeting.

Regina shrugs, but smiles slightly, a little smug. “We had to pass the time somehow.”

“What?”

“When we were deployed,” she clarifies. “Always encouraged to play team sports. For obvious reasons. Soccer isn’t exactly my passion, but I’ve always thought it’s about as enjoyable as exercise can be. Unfortunately, none of my children save Mulan seem to agree very much with me.”

“Yeah,” Emma laughs, before shaking her head. “I don’t know why I’m laughing, I’m terrible too.” When Regina hesitates to respond (or rather, agree), she lets out another laugh. “It’s okay. You can agree.”

She grins. “Okay, you’re kind of terrible,” she admits, and when Emma snorts with laughter once more she joins in.

“In my defence,” Emma says, still beaming, “most other sports I can do. Like tennis. I kick _ass_ at tennis.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I’ll have to take you up on that, then. In the summer.”

“Ah, I mean. If I’m here in the summer. You know, now you’ve got - uh, Maleficent…” Emma trails off, looking a little uncomfortable, and Regina feels her gut seize up slightly. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of Emma leaving again, more permanently this time, and it feels so much like a slap in the face that she forgets to answer. Emma clears her throat.

“Anyway,” she says. “Even without you and her getting...you know. You don’t need me. I mean, any more. You’re…” she hesitates, before continuing, in a far quieter voice, “you’re so much better with them, Regina.”

Regina swallows thickly, watching Ruby shove Henry’s shoulder and then pull him in for a tight hug in the same movement. “Yes,” she says.

A long pause. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come back,” Emma says.

Regina turns to look at her, finds not an ounce of self-pity on her face, just a tired sort of resignation. She feels something in her ache. “No,” she says in as firm a voice as she can manage, wishing desperately she could reach out and take Emma’s hand in her own. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

“Regina -”

“They adore you,” she says, already feeling her voice starting to lose its strong quality as emotion seeps into it. “They practically think you hung the moon. And when you were gone - you were only gone for a fortnight and they were _miserable_ , Emma. It was like they couldn’t even concentrate on - anything with you gone, like the house was just - just missing something, it was like…” Regina cuts herself off, realising with a hint of terror that she might not be talking about the children at all.

“Like?” Emma prompts softly, and her face is so open, so bold, so daring in showing what she wants, that Regina wants to push her away and take her into her arms all at once. Any words that she might have been able to speak are abruptly robbed from her throat, and all she can do is stare and feel the panic start to ebb slowly at her consciousness, feel like she’s standing on top of a very tall building and one more step might send her toppling off the edge. And the worst part is she likes it. The panic is accompanied by adrenaline, strong and heady, and desire, exhilarating enough to make Regina shaky all over.

“Regina?”

“We should go,” she says. “The children will freeze otherwise.”

Emma’s face shifts until it becomes nearly inscrutable. Regina feels her heart thud in her chest.

“Yeah,” she says, voice stiff. “We should.” She heads off towards the children without another word, and Regina watches her go, unable to keep herself from feeling the longing that aches in her bones.

 

Maleficent waits for her in the living room after dinner, hands placed in front of her and gaze pinned to her feet. Regina sits next to her gingerly.

“Hi,” she says. The room is quiet and she knows what’s coming.

“Hi,” Maleficent says in kind. There’s a beat, then she holds out her hand. Regina takes it, a little hesitant, and feels the slide of metal against her fingers. When she pulls away, her ring is sitting in her palm. She stares at it.

“Ah,” Regina lets out eventually, letting her hand curl into a fist around it. It’s uncomfortable and sweaty and Mal is looking at her sadly.

“Regina…”

“No,” she manages. “You’re right. It’s - it’s no use. The two of us.”

“You know that’s not what I think,” Mal whispers. “But I think perhaps it’s what you feel.”

“I’ve been dishonest to both of us,” Regina tells her, feeling the panic return, heavy as it pumps its way through to her brain. “I’ve been so unfair to you. I’ve been so…”

“Ssh,” Mal lets out, moving forward as though to touch Regina’s cheek before seeming to second-guess the movement and halting where she is, hand suspended slightly in mid-air. Regina stares at it, wonders how they’ve managed to get from unflinching comfort in one another to a hesitation even to touch. But Mal smiles, eyes roving across her face, almost fondly. “Don’t, Regina.”

“I’ve ruined it,” she whispers. “I’ve ruined it again.”

“Perhaps a little,” Maleficent says almost teasingly, mouth quirking up into a near-smile, hand creeping up Regina’s thigh. “But I think we both knew it was never really that much of a possibility, even with...recent added complications.”

“I didn’t mean to lead you on,” Regina says.

Mal laughs. “You never do,” she replies. “This isn’t the first time, is it?”

“No.”

“You’ve broken my heart more than a few times now, Regina Mills,” Maleficent says, almost wistfully. “And I think if I really wanted to I could fool myself into thinking I’ve broken yours in return, although the reality is you’re much too...independent for that.”

“Is that so?” Regina murmurs.

“Yes,” Mal says evenly, reaching for Regina’s hand and weaving their fingers together. The contact feels safe, like it always does. “I’ve been doing some thinking and I probably should have seen it coming. You’re really not the right person for me.” Her expression turns coy again, enough to make Regina wonder which parts of what she’s saying are the truth. “I need someone who needs me, desperately.”

“It’s not that I don’t need you.”

“It’s not that you do need me, either.”

“Love shouldn’t be - shouldn’t be about needing.”

Mal stares at her for what feels like an age. “No,” she agrees. “It shouldn’t. Perhaps that’s where we went wrong, hm?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, that and the fact that you’ve managed to fall for a closeted nun.”

Regina bites her lip. “You make it sound very bad,” she says at last.

Maleficent laughs. “Darling, you _are_ very bad. And that Miss Swan is never going to be a nun ever again.”

Regina wants to say something, feels the words drift up to her lips but doesn’t know whether to say them or not. She takes a shaky breath. “You know,” she says. “I - well, I love you.”

“I do know that,” Mal says with a near-smirk. “But I think these days we’re on different wavelengths.”

“Yes.”

Maleficent looks more serious for a second. “I’m very fond of you,” she says, and it’s the most honest thing Regina’s heard come out of her month since they both sat down on the couch. “And I’ve enjoyed all the time we’ve had together. So - thank you. For that.”

“I have too,” Regina says honestly.

“I don’t doubt that,” Maleficent says. “I taught you everything you know. In bed and elsewhere. But mostly in bed.”

“You’re terrible.”

“I won’t deny it,” she says, before adding: “I’ve packed my bags.”

Regina sucks in a sharp breath. “You don’t have to leave so soon.”

“I think I do. Besides, New York is where I belong. Small-town Maine was always more your thing. I’ll be glad to be back home by morning.”

“Your flight’s this evening?”

“Yes. Zelena’s driving me to Portland in an hour or so.”

“I can take you,” she offers.

Maleficent purses her lips. “Perhaps that’s not for the best.”

Regina pauses. “Perhaps it isn’t,” she says quietly.

“I need to finish packing,” Mal says abruptly, despite having just said that she’d already done so. Regina recognises the tightness in her face, feels something like a sledgehammer hit her in the chest at the realisation that she might be close to tears.

 _I did this_ , she thinks. _I did this._ _Why did I do this?_ _Why did I do this to my closest friend in the world?_

“Okay,” she says. She wants to say _I’m sorry_ but the words don’t fit any more.

“Would it be terribly undignified and melodramatic of me to ask for a kiss?”

Regina smiles, feels sadness overwhelm her like the sea. “No,” she says, leaning in and obliging gently. The actions are easy to fall into and Regina lets it happen until Mal pulls away abruptly, biting her lip and avoiding eye contact.

“I really - should go,” she manages, voice shaky.

“Call me,” Regina tells her. “When you - when you want to. If you want to.”

“Yes,” Maleficent says, and leaves. Regina stares at the whitewashed wall in front of her eyes and feels a hollowness deep within her chest.

Almost as soon as Mal leaves, something odd happens to Emma Swan, and that is every time Regina enters a room, she finds an excuse to leave it. It becomes such a common occurrence in the ensuing weeks that Regina eventually stops reacting outwardly. But she comes more and more paranoid when Emma avoids talking to her directly at mealtimes, or fumbles through pointless apologies when they run into each other in the hallway. She starts convincing herself that she’d imagined all of Emma’s feelings in her head, that she’d gotten an entirely wrong read on the situation, that all the unsaid things that had been drifting to the surface in the odd time between Emma’s return and Mal’s departure didn’t exist outside of her own mind.

And the fear is only reinforced by her own need now to be around Emma that seems to have been triggered by Mal leaving. She finds a terrifyingly intense wanting deep in her gut for shared eye contact and the sound of Emma laughing and a closeness that they’ve never even had before. She doesn’t even know how to articulate it - but it doesn’t matter, apparently, because Emma seems inclined to avoid her at every turn anyway.

“You should just talk to her.”

“What?” Regina turns and blinks at Henry, who is sitting with his notebook placed in front of him but eyeing her with a thoroughly unimpressed look. She’s still standing near the doorway of the kitchen, which Emma has just left from after babbling some entirely nonsensical excuse about checking on Belle’s homework, made even more nonsensical by the fact that Belle doesn’t have any vacation homework in the first place and is in fact watching _Toy Story 3_ with Zelena upstairs.

“You should talk to Emma.”

“About what?”

Now, Henry actually glares, and Regina raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like _that_ , young man.”

He evens out his face slightly, but still manages to look at Regina in a way that makes her feel incredibly stupid. “You should talk to Emma,” he repeats.

“I have nothing to talk to her about, Henry.”

“Yeah, you do,” he insists, leaning forward. “You like her.” Now, the haughty expression makes way for one of slight embarrassment. “Or something.”

Regina feels her cheeks warm slightly but decides to play dumb. “Of course I like her,” she says. “She’s your…”

“M _oo-oo_ m,” Henry groans melodramatically, dragging out the syllables. “Maleficent isn’t here any more, you don’t have to pretend.”

Regina bristles. “I wasn’t _pretending_ with Maleficent, Henry.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he says. “I know you loved her or whatever, you guys have been friends _forever_.”

Regina’s hit by a brief wave of sadness that’s perhaps intensified by nostalgia. Mal hasn’t called since she went back to New York, but perhaps space is what she needs - what they both need. “Yes, we have,” she says.

“I just mean you don’t have to pretend you don’t like Emma any more,” he continues, looking away from her. “Since you like-like her, or whatever.”

Regina sighs and moves to sit at the kitchen island, opposite him. “Has your Auntie Zelena been talking to you?”

“What? No. I mean, not about this.”

“So she didn’t put this into your head.”

“ _No_.” The _you’re so stupid_ look is back on Henry’s face. “I just have eyes, Mom. Also, Emma totally likes you back, you guys flirt grossly sometimes and she looks at you when you’re not looking all the time.”

“We do? She does?”

Henry rolls his eyes. He looks so much like his older sisters that it hurts. “ _Duh_.”

Regina shifts, a little uncomfortable. “Henry - I don’t know if…if Emma and I,” she pauses, relishing the words _Emma and I_ on her tongue, the way they sound like a pair and not just two individuals, “if we’re really…” she trails off, not sure of where she’s going. “I can be very difficult,” she says at last.

“You’re not difficult.”

“Henry -”

“You’re _not_ ,” he says, cutting her off. “Difficult’s the wrong word. Difficult is what we say Roland is being when he won’t eat his broccoli. You’re not _difficult_.”

“You’re my son,” she says to him. “You’re meant to say that.”

“Emma would say it too,” he tells her with a knowing look.

This is so much more complicated than he’s making it sound, Regina thinks to herself. Sometimes Henry is so unflinchingly intelligent that she forgets that he’s still a child; that some things are still thoroughly black and white to his eyes.

“Maybe,” she acknowledges a moment’s pause. “But she probably wouldn’t really know what she’s talking about.”

“Why are _you_ deciding that?”

“ _Because_ , Henry,” she huffs, frustration beginning to seep into her tone. “I’ve _been_ me, so I know what I’m like. Emma doesn’t...Emma doesn’t know that.”

Henry looks at her very seriously. “I think she does. Emma’s really smart. Like, she spends ages telling us she’s not smart because she didn’t go to college and she made stupid mistakes when she was a teenager, but she understands things.” Henry halts and frowns, annoyed at having rambled for so long, then adds:  “And she understands you.” He shrugs. “So.”

 _She understands you_. The words thud through into Regina’s bloodstream, chilling and warming her at the same time. “Henry,” she says. “We don’t…”

“Mom,” he says, leaning back and crossing his arms with a frown. “Why do you keep making excuses? Do you even _like_ Emma?”

Regina blinks in surprise. The question hasn’t even occurred to her before. Her feelings for Emma have never been fully digested or slowly realised; instead, they’d just surfaced all at once into her consciousness and never left. She doesn’t even know when they started. She just knows that they’re there and that Henry asking questions like _do you even like Emma_ seem so utterly ridiculous because of course she likes Emma. Of course she likes Emma’s stupid jokes and candid looks and calm, patient eyes.

“Yes,” she says, the word slightly strangled. “I do like Emma, very much.”

“Then…” He nods towards the door of the kitchen, indicating what Regina should do. She purses her lips, glances at the door, then looks back at him. The hopeful expression on his face seizes her with uncharacteristic agency.

“I should find her, shouldn’t I?”

Henry grins. “Yeah. You should.”

Regina starts towards the door, before stopping and darting back to Henry at the table, dropping a kiss onto his head. “I love you,” she murmurs fervently. “So much.”

He grins wider, lopsided, and for a brief moment looks so much like Emma that her stomach turns. How has this woman managed to pervade so much of their lives in such a short amount of time? “I love you too, Mom. Enough to give you advice on your crush.”

Regina straightens up and pushes against his head lightly with a mock glare. “You are _very_ rude. And it’ll be you, soon. See how much help I give you _then_.”

Henry colours a little. “Whatever,” he mumbles. “Crushes are weird.”

“They are,” Regina hums. “Are you writing?”

“I was, before you came in looking sad because Emma left. Now I’m gonna start again.” He picks up his pen pointedly.

“Do I get to read it when you’re done?”

“Obviously,” Henry says, but he’s already concentrating on his notebook, gone again from her in just a moment. Regina yearns, only briefly. She has Henry, she tells herself. And he has her, and his pens and his paper and his words.

“Okay,” she says softly. “See you later.”

“Mmhm,” Henry hums, not looking up. Regina exits the kitchen quietly and wanders into the hallway, moving towards the living room. Emma is sat on the couch by the window, wrapped up in a blanket and frowning at a book. Regina’s heart clenches and releases.

“Hi,” she says softly as she enters. Emma jolts and looks up; her cheeks seem to immediately begin to colour and her eyes dart, slightly dishearteningly, for the door.

“Regina,” she says by way of greeting, sitting up and folding the book closed. “Hi. Sorry. I was - uh, I was reading.”

“I can see that,” Regina says lightly, moving further into the room with some hesitance, coming to a stop in front of the armchair closest to Emma’s couch and beginning to sit into it whilst glancing as the book’s front cover. “ _Matilda_?”

Emma blushes deeper, tucking her hair behind an ear, and Regina wants to reach forward and kiss her breathless. “Yeah,” she says with a slightly embarrassed laugh. “Not exactly...adult reading…”

“I love Roald Dahl,” Regina says.

“Really?”

“Really,” she confirms. “He’s so, well, I don’t know, really. He’s not just funny, it’s...I don’t know. I just mean you’re not getting judged for reading _Matilda_ in this house. In fact…” she trails off, moving forward slightly to catch sight of the cover again. “I think that’s actually my copy you’re reading right now.”

“Oh - oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Emma says immediately with widening eyes, dropping the book as though burnt. “Henry - gave it to me - he said -”

“Emma,” Regina interrupts, moving her hand to Emma’s knee on impulse. “It’s fine. Honestly. Books are meant to be read, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Emma agrees, but her eyes have drifted to her leg, where Regina’s hand is still resting. “Thanks.”

“Sorry,” she mumbles, withdrawing it self-consciously.

“No, it’s…” Emma starts, tone breathy, before clearing her throat and saying in a stronger voice, “it’s fine.”

Regina hesitates, then says: “You know, this is the first time in about a week that I’ve really spoken to you.”

Emma’s eyes shift. “Really?” she says. “I didn’t notice.”

“Didn’t you?” she says quietly. “Emma?”

Emma looks away.

“Have you been avoiding me?”

“What?”

“Have you been avoiding me, Emma?”

“Why would you…”

Regina leans forward. “Recently you’ve been getting up to leave a room every time I come into it. And call me self-centred, but it’s happened so often now that the correlation between the two things seems reasonably strong.”

“Regina -”

“And it’s only worse when you seem to be making up your excuses to leave in the first place.”

“I haven’t -”

“You haven’t made up any excuses?”

“No, I just…”

“Then what?”

Emma sighs, runs a hand over her face as she sits forward on the couch and eliminates more distance between them. “You just broke up with Mal, okay? And you know how I...you know that I…” she halts and swallows. “I just don’t want you to feel - pressured.”

“So that’s what this is.”

“It’s not…” Emma halts, shifts away and bites her lip. “You’re already looking at me like I’ve messed up somewhere.”

“No,” Regina replies, moving away too, suddenly embarrassed by how close she’d wanted to be to Emma before without even realising. “No, you - you haven’t. You haven’t messed anything up. I - I’m the one who does that.”

“Regina…”

“You’re…” She stops and takes a breath, skims her eyes over Emma’s profile, her expression of concern. “You’re fine,” she says, caught on the curve of Emma’s nose and freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. It’s far from what she wants to say, but she doesn’t even know what she wants to say.

“I am?”

“You are.”

“Well,” Emma starts, the corner of her mouth ticking up into a soft gentle smile, “you’re fine too.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Yeah.” Regina watches Emma’s eyes trace over her, careful and hesitant, and she’s shifted to the edge of the couch suddenly.

“And I don’t feel pressured,” Regina murmurs. She’s suddenly entirely distracted by how close they’re sitting, their knees almost touching and Emma’s individual eyelashes visible to her.

“Oh,” Emma lets out. “You don’t?”

“Not really.”

“That’s - good.”

“Yes.” Regina leans a little closer. “You didn’t ask me why.”

“What?”

“When Mal and I broke up, you didn’t ask me why.”

“I mean -” Emma looks up and gulps. “It’s not...any of my business…”

“You should ask me why,” Regina says hoarsely. Even closer now. She can barely hear anything beside her breathing and Emma’s, uneven, breezing past her ear, and everything seems to have narrowed down to this one particular moment, the room around them slipping away. She wants, she wants, she wants.

“Okay,” Emma whispers, gaze dropping to Regina’s lips.

“Ask me.” Regina arches closer, giving up all pretenses of being sat in her armchair as she moves her head close enough to Emma’s to touch. “Emma.”

Emma draws in a shuddery breath that turns even sharper as she turns her head on instinct and their noses brush. “I can’t - concentrate on anything when you’re...Regina…”

Regina gives in. “Say that again,” she murmurs, lips almost brushing Emma’s with the movement.

“ _Regina_ …”

“That.” Regina wants to hear her name in Emma’s voice all day, in every tone possible. She wants to be this close to her all the time; she realises with a jolt that she’s _wanted_ to be this close to her for a _long_ time. And she hasn’t forgotten about the way everything burns when she touches it, she hasn’t forgotten about how this time tomorrow the two of them could be cinders and it would be Regina’s fault, but every point of contact between them is burning so deliciously in such a different way that suddenly it doesn’t matter. Regina is scared but Emma is here. Emma matters.

“Regina,” Emma says for the third time. She tilts her head back and Regina follows her on instinct, unable to help it. She watches Emma smile in quiet amusement,  feels her fingers move up across her jawline into her hair.

“I really like you,” Regina blurts out after a brief moment. Emma’s eyes turn more serious, still shining a little. “I like you so much. I didn’t realise how much I did until you left and - and now you’re here.”

“Now I’m here,” Emma agrees quietly.

“Emma,” Regina says.

“Yeah.”

“Regina! What exactly is wrong with the DVD player upstairs? Belle says that you’re the only one who can ever get it to -”

Regina jerks forward in surprise at the sound of her sister’s voice, toppling ungracefully into Emma’s lap just in time for Zelena to walk in and observe them with an expression of surprise that quickly turns into one of sly amusement.

“I’m so sorry,” she drawls in a way that makes her sound the complete opposite. “I didn’t realise I was interrupting something.”

Regina stands up quickly and deposits herself back on the armchair where she originally started as Emma clears her throat and looks uncomfortable.

“You weren’t,” she says in as dignified a manner as she can manage, darting her gaze back to Emma, who seems to suddenly be avoiding eye contact. “DVD player?”

She starts for the door before rethinking her actions slightly and reaching back for Emma, dropping down to squeeze her arm briefly enough that it doesn’t attract Zelena’s attention before following her out. Her fingers ache slightly after brushing against Emma’s skin, as though asking quietly for more. She wonders briefly if this is what addiction is like.

“So?” Zelena murmurs as they ascend the stairs.

“Mind your own business,” Regina mutters back, elbowing her. Zelena sniggers, but Regina thinks of Emma downstairs, smiling at her, with their noses brushing against up each other, and a warmth starts to bloom in her chest that she couldn’t stop if she tried.

 

Regina doesn’t see Emma again for the rest of the day.

“She said she isn’t hungry?” she asks with a frown when Mulan reports that Emma isn’t coming down for dinner and is staying up in her room instead.

“Yeah, I guess,” she replies, non-committally enough that Regina knows there’s a lie in there somewhere. But no point shooting the messenger, she thinks.

She isn’t focused over dinner or the aftermath, though, fidgets so obviously that eventually Ruby huffs at her and says, “Just go find her, Regina.”

Regina again, she thinks ruefully. It’s the name for her that Ruby uses the most often, _Mom_ only coming out in moments of honest vulnerability, and she can’t blame her; unlike most of her siblings, Ruby had an entire life before joining their family, a mother and father of her own who can’t be discounted or swept aside. Regina knows that when Ruby calls her _Mom_ it isn’t quite a name, more a recognition of familiarity, an acknowledgement of love. And part of that makes it even better than anything Regina could want. But she’s still human, still selfish, and she still loves Ruby so much that the words often escape her, so she can’t help the pang of hurt when she finds out that her name of the day is _Regina_ and not _Mom_.

“Hm?” Regina lets out, eyes moving up to Ruby, who is sprawled across the couch opposite and flipping through the television channels with supreme disinterest.

“Emma,” Ruby clarifies, eyes not moving from the television. “Go find her. You’re obviously desperate to.”

Regina bristles. “I’m not _desperate_ -”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ruby says, still not moving her gaze, but a smile slipping onto her face. “Whatever you say.”

“Watch it,” Regina lets out at last, trying to keep her tone firm but having it inevitably be tempered by amusement anyway.

“Sorry, Mom,” Ruby says, and there it is; only three letters, but it makes her heart seize up with feeling. She’s grinning widely now, and turns to look at Regina for the first time. “You guys are like teenagers, you know? It’s kind of cute. Also kind of gross.”

“We’re not…”

“You don’t have to tell me you guys aren’t together. Like, you don’t have to keep it a secret.”

“It’s not a secret,” Regina says softly. “Because we’re not together.” She pauses. “I don’t keep secrets from you.”

“No,” Ruby agrees. “But sometimes you don’t talk like you should.”

“Like I _should_?” Regina frowns, barely aware of the tautness in her voice at her daughter’s comment. “Is there something I _should_ talk about now?”

Ruby stiffens slightly but otherwise doesn’t react. “Yeah,” she says evenly.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, I just think there’s things you could mention sometimes.”

“Like _what_ , Ruby?”

“Like your therapy,” Ruby snaps suddenly. Regina blinks in surprise.

“Ruby,” she lets out on a sigh.

“I’m not a kid any more,” Ruby mumbles grumpily. “You can tell me stuff.”

 _You are_ , Regina wants to say. _You are a kid. You are so young and beautiful and I can’t wait to see what you do with your life._ “I know that,” she says instead. She hesitates, before crossing over to sit by Ruby on the couch. “I know that, _linda_.”

“You’re my…” Ruby pauses. “My family. And I’m yours.”

Regina has to stop, keep herself from drawing her arms around her and winding her fingers through her hair. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, of course.”

“Then…”

“Ruby,” Regina says, a sigh oozing into the word again. “It’s not because - because I don’t love you, or I don’t trust you, or I don’t think you’re old enough. Part of the reason I…” She halts, bites her lip. “I’m very bad at talking,” she says at last. “It doesn’t come to me easily.”

Ruby turns her head, gives her a slight smile. “Yeah, I noticed,” she says lightly.

“I’m not sure I’m liking this new attitude of yours,” Regina says with an arched eyebrow, but she can’t keep from smiling back, the expression a Pavlovian reaction to Ruby’s.

“I learned from the best,” Ruby returns with a grin, and they have a moment of shared amusement before her eyes grow serious again. “I just - don’t forget I’m there,” she says. “Regina. I’m here.”

Regina takes a deep breath. _Weak_ , she thinks. _Leaning on a seventeen year-old girl for support. Can’t even carry your own burdens_. “I’m your…” she edges out after a long while. “Family. I’m meant to be here for you.”

“You are. But it goes two ways, you know? And I...I like knowing about you.” Ruby trains her eyes on her feet, lip curling a little in what seems to be self-consciousness. “I like knowing about who you are. What you’ve done.”

“Some of that is hard,” Regina admits. “Some of that I can’t even talk about yet. And that’s why I’m...doing what I’m doing.” She smiles. “But other parts of it…”

“Whatever you want,” Ruby says.

“Whatever _you_ want,” Regina returns, then, after gathering her confidence: “ _Te adoro_ , hm?”

“I know,” Ruby murmurs, shifting closer and resting her head in the crook of Regina’s neck. “I do too.”

Regina feels calmer and safer in that brief moment than she has for weeks on end, and curls her arm tighter around Ruby’s waist. They sit and breathe on the couch, drink in each other’s presence. She doesn’t know how long it is before Ruby speaks again.

“Mother,” she says abruptly.

“Hm?”

“You always - you never say it. You always start with _I’m your_ and say something different. Mother. You’re my -” Ruby cuts herself off when her voice starts to shake, takes a deep breath before dissolving entirely. “My - mother,” she manages before letting out a sob.

“Oh, _linda_ ,” Regina sighs, moving just in time to catch Ruby’s arms being flung around her neck, hold her tear-wracked body with her own. “Oh, sweetheart.” Ruby is always like this around Christmas and Thanksgiving, equal parts broken and moody and desperate to connect. And sometimes Regina is so much of the same that between the two of them they barely manage to pull through the holiday season, clinging on for dear life. But today, now, she tells herself, it’s different. Now she will hold Ruby tight enough to take the air out of both of them and draw circles on her back with her fingers and whisper whatever she can until her daughter stops drowning and comes up for air.

 

Regina’s thinking about going to bed when she passes Emma’s room, and she doesn’t actually intend on eavesdropping at all, but when she hears Zelena’s voice coming out from behind the wood of the door she’s so surprised that she stops short anyway.

“Darling -”

“Don’t call me that.”

“ _Darling_ , if you just wanted to ask if Regina’s desperately _infatuated_ with you, anyone with eyes could have confirmed it, not just me. You can obviously see it too, since you’ve been pursuing her like a puppy for the past month. What exactly do you _want_?”

“I don’t know,” Emma says, and Regina can hear the strain in her voice even on the other side of the door.

“You do know,” Zelena replies, and her eye-roll is practically audible. “You want her. Or are you having second thoughts?”

This strikes such a strong combination of fear and embarrassment into Regina that she veers away from the door almost immediately. She thinks back to the couch and suddenly her recollection seems frayed with second-guessing. Was she too forward? Did she make Emma uncomfortable? Was the buzz that Regina felt on her skin and the electric jolt when they touched just something she felt? She vaguely hears a response in Emma’s voice but is already thrust too deeply back into her own mind to register the words, and she moves away and towards her own bedroom on autopilot, stays standing at the window for a long time and watches the sky until, eventually, she catches sight of Emma leaving the house below and moving out into the garden. Her stature seems hunched and she looks utterly tiny in the large, wide darkness of outside, and Regina feels a pang of _something_ course through her. Without giving herself time to second-guess the impulse, she leaves the room and heads downstairs.

 

“I thought I just might find you here.”

Emma’s head jerks up when she hears Regina’s voice, and her back follows suit, so she’s sitting up rigidly straight. “Regina,” she says, face painted in silvery greys by the moonlight she’s sitting in. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Regina replies, staring at her.

Emma clears her throat. “Was there - was there something you wanted?”

“Hm? No, no, no, no. Uh, may I?” She gestures towards the bench that Emma is sitting on - it’s the one under the magnolia tree right at the bottom of the garden, just by the gazebo; Regina’s favourite spot and clearly one that Emma gravitates to as well. Emma shifts sideways accordingly and she sits down. “You didn’t come to dinner,” she observes.

“No,” Emma says.

“Mulan said you weren’t hungry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Now,” she says softly. “When has Emma Swan never not been hungry?”

Emma swallows and turns jerkily away from her. “It happens.”

“Emma,” Regina says. The fidgety panic that she felt all through dinner is beginning to seep back into her, creeping and venomous, _she doesn’t want you she doesn’t want you she’ll never want you_. But she thinks of Emma on the couch this afternoon, of Emma drinking wine in her study, of Emma dancing with her in this garden. “Is there something…”

“What?” Emma bites out, so stiffly that it strikes something cold in her gut. “What do you _want_ , Regina?”

Emma’s building walls around herself already, and Regina reaches for her arm, desperate to keep them from blocking her out. “I thought that was obvious,” she murmurs. “I thought I - made that quite clear. And I…” she stops, frowns. “I thought that what we wanted was - I thought we wanted the same thing.” God, why can’t she ever just _say_ anything? Why has she ruined it already? Why was everything easier when they were inside and sitting on the couch and talking without talking?

“Why _now_?” Emma asks, voice harsh in the cool night air. “I’ve been chasing you for - I’ve been _wanting_ you for so long and you’ve been pushing me away and suddenly in the space of one day you - you, what? You like me? You want to have sex with me? You think I’d be cool to have around for a couple of weeks?”

She feels herself go cold all over. “Stop it,” she says, anger seeping into her tone before she can stop it. “That’s not it and you know it. Just because you’re - _insecure_ -”

“Insecure!”

“Yes!” Regina says, pushed further by the derision in Emma’s voice. “I don’t know what _else_ you’d call it -”

“I’d call it not wanting to get screwed over, Regina! Do you even _know_ what you want?”

“ _Yes_ !” Regina declares, giving up on keeping her voice down. “I want _you_! Have I not managed to make it clear enough?”

“I don’t know, Regina,” Emma retorts viciously. “You seemed pretty unsure about the whole thing until today!”

“You don’t need to make it about _you_ ,” Regina tells her with no little amount of spite. “I made very clear why it was I found it difficult to…”

“To _what_ , Regina? To _be_ with me? You can’t even say it.”

Regina remembers Maleficent, just after she’d proposed. How she couldn’t say the word _married_ without it stopping up in her throat. Insecurities are sliding back and forth all over the shadows on Emma’s face, her eyes dark, and it’s stealing the air from her lungs.

“Just because it took me a long time doesn’t mean I don’t want you, Emma,” she says hoarsely.

“But it does mean you’re more likely to change your mind,” Emma shoots back.

“Emma,” Regina starts.

“ _No_ ,” Emma lets out, eyes aflame as she faces Regina directly. “I’m used to people not wanting me, Regina. I’m a _foster kid_ , my whole fucking life has been people not wanting me, and I’ve learned to stop wanting them. But with you I - with you I -” she stops, cuts herself off with a wild screech of frustration. “God, I can’t stop _thinking_ about you - even when I first came here I couldn’t stop thinking about you, I want you out of my head! _Why_ can’t I stop? And I got shit scared and I went back to the - the _fucking_ abbey and Mary Margaret said that that was dumb and I was running away from my problems, because she always pulls that bullshit -”

“So you came back.”

“Yeah,” Emma says. “I came back. Because I was scared, before. You didn’t - Regina, I didn’t just _like_ you, I -” She stops, takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know that I was...I was gay. Before. I mean, I probably knew, but I didn’t _know_. Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is for a nun to discover that she’s _gay_?”

Regina swallows hard. “I -”

“I know I was never in the abbey for having _faith_ ,” Emma continues, not looking at her, eyes fixed on a point far ahead in the distance. “I was in there because I was sleeping rough on one of the coldest nights of the year and they found a passed out twenty-four year-old near their gates and they had some human compassion. But the reason I didn’t leave was - I don’t know, I guess because I felt like I belonged somewhere. Like I wasn’t just biding my time until they kicked me out.”

“Emma -”

“And then they did. Obviously. But I came here and - and I felt like that, like I - I don't know, I kind of _belonged_ - with the kids. With you.” Emma’s voice becomes heavy with feeling, and Regina wants desperately to reach for her. Her limbs feel suddenly ungainly and out of place as she struggles to work out what to do with them. “And just because you’re a woman - that doesn’t...I mean, God, I really liked you, Regina. I really _like_ you. And there was no point in hiding from that, especially not in a fucking abbey. So yeah, I came back.”

Regina opens her mouth to say something but finds no words come out. Emma carries on regardless, voice far stiffer now, the anger seeping back into it.

And _you_ -” she turns back to face her, gestures wildly, swallows - “I tried to get over the fact that you were getting _married_ and I know it was a shitty move to tell you how gone I am on you whilst you were engaged, but I...I look at you and stupid words come out - and then you break up with your girlfriend and suddenly you’re trying to seduce me on your couch and what the hell am I meant to think?”

“I don’t know,” Regina says, biting her lip. “I don’t know what you’re meant to think.”

“This is stupid,” Emma says, voice not nearly as firm as her words. She turns away from her again, as though embarrassed. “I don’t...”

“Emma,” Regina says once again, this time in a whisper.

“I keep thinking you’ll change your mind,” Emma says shakily. “You…”

Regina eyes her carefully. “I’m not going to change my mind.” After failing to garner a response from Emma, she lets out a sigh and faces away from her slightly. “I like you too much to change my mind. I don’t…” She looks back at Emma, at the frayed indecision plastered across her face, and can’t help letting out a tiny laugh when she realises how similar the expression must be to her own, how scared they both are. “I think we’re very stupid.”

Emma turns and looks at her, and the anger seems to tip out of Emma’s expression all at once, like water out of a cup. She lets out a breath in a way that could constitute as laughter, and looks very intently at her instead, until Regina feels like she’s going to crawl out of her skin from it. “We are, aren’t we?” she concludes after a long silence.

“Yes.” Regina slides closer to her.

“And we probably could have done this way sooner.”

“Probably.”

“You don’t mind that I’m totally gone on you?”

“On the contrary,” Regina says gently, moving to slide her fingers up the back of Emma’s neck and thread them through her hair, delighting in the resulting shiver that comes from her cool fingers brushing against warm skin.

“And you don’t…”

“Emma,” Regina says, brushing their lips together gently. “Emma,” she says again when they pull apart.

“Yeah,” Emma replies in a hoarse voice that slips right down to the pit of Regina’s stomach and sits there heavily. She moves their mouths back together again, bites gently on her lip and deepens the kiss until Emma lets out a soft whimper.

“I can’t stop thinking about you either,” Regina murmurs when they break apart, feeling Emma’s harsh breaths move against her lips. “It scares me. You scare me.”

Emma kisses her again, and Regina speaks again when they pull apart. “And I want you,” she whispers. “I want you so much.”

She watches Emma take in a sharp breath and swallow, begins to trail soft kisses across her jawline and behind her ear. “I don’t want to ruin this,” she confesses against Emma’s skin, arching back to press more open-mouthed kisses to Emma’s neck and sucking at her collarbone, relishing the hitch in Emma’s breath as she does so. “I always ruin - everything, and I…”

“Regina,” Emma lets out with a breathless laugh. “If you kiss like that, I don’t think you can ruin anything.”

Regina stops, turns her face up to meet Emma’s eyes. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Emma says, moving her hand and stroking across Regina’s jaw with her thumb, eyes carrying such strong feeling that Regina feels every empty pore in her body start to fill up. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Emma...I’m -”

“You don’t need to spell out all your flaws for me, you know,” Emma says softly. “Apart from the fact that you’ve done it already, I’ve also lived with you for months now, so I kind of know most of them.”

“It’s different when we’re - when you’re…”

“Is it?” Emma kisses her - once, gently. “I’m not perfect either, Regina. We’ll figure it out.”

Regina wants to keep arguing, but she’s tired. She’s tired of fighting against something that feels so good, at least for the moment, and she’s tired of fighting Emma now that she knows what her mouth tastes like against hers. She’s tired of hearing their voices saying the same words over and over again when they could be saying new ones, like _yes_ and _good_ and _like_ and _love_. She goes back to Emma’s neck, moving up it to Emma’s lips, kisses her again and again until she’s letting out her name in a rough voice that sends shivers up and down Regina’s arms.

“Regina…” Emma lets out.

“Mm?” she hums against Emma’s sternum, mouthing at the skin there.

“We should - tell the - _ah_ \- the children.”

Regina pulls away and looks at Emma with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “Do you really want to be thinking about the children right now?”

“No,” Emma says, “but also yes. We should tell them.”

“Tell them what, Miss Swan?” Regina asks lightly, eyes gleaming as she pulls Emma closer by the lapels of her coat. “How you’re so _madly_ infatuated with me that I caused you to have a mild identity crisis, try to be a nun again, and then return to seduce me?”

“That is _not_ how it happened,” Emma says, eyes darkening with a mix of annoyance and lust that Regina immediately wants to see again.

“Really?” she asks with a grin, slipping her hand under Emma’s coat and top to trace patterns on the skin of her bare shoulder. “You’re _sure_ that’s not how it happened?”

“Yeah,” Emma says with a wicked smile. “You forgot about how you had the hots for me so majorly that you broke off your engagement for me.”

Regina huffs, pulls her in for another kiss. “Shut up,” she says.

“Make me,” Emma replies, although it comes out as more of a request than a challenge. Regina does, and a few moments later, they go inside, and pause by the garden door of the house like teenagers coming back from their first date.

“So…” Emma says, shifting from one foot to the other as she stands on the patio. “Do we…”

“Emma,” Regina says, working hard not to laugh. “This is your house too, you know. I don’t know why you’re just standing outside like an idiot.”

Emma smiles softly, and Regina watches as it brightens steadily to a slightly dopey grin that she would mock if she wasn’t reasonably sure she was wearing a matching one on her own face. “Okay. Yeah. Cool. Come in. I can do that.”

“Mmhm.” Regina stands to the side and cocks an eyebrow at her. Emma steps inside and ends up far too close to her.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Regina brings up her fingers to feel at the skin at Emma’s waist where her top has ridden up, only to be halted by a wince. 

“Yikes. Cold fingers. Stop that.”

“You mean you don’t  _ love _ the feeling of my fingers running against your  _ bare skin _ …”

“Shut up,” Emma says, catching Regina’s fingers and rolling her eyes at her smirk. “You’re actually freezing, so no, right now I totally don’t.”

“I have ideas of how we could warm up,” Regina tells her a little lecherously. Emma’s eyebrows hike up her forehead.

“Okay, so this is a new Regina.”

Emma’s right, it is a new Regina. But mostly just a Regina who is a little astonished at the fact that Emma is actually here, actually in front of her, that it actually worked out. That they’re both standing facing each other and they’ve talked about their feelings for more than two minutes and nothing bad has happened. She’s a Regina who is quickly realising the extent to which she’s extremely attracted to Emma Swan. 

“Yes,” she admits. “Except no. Not new, just...I really like you.”

“So you’ve said,” Emma teases, but every part of her face is bright and she’s practically beaming. When Regina leans in, though, she stops her with a gentle hand to her chest. “Except, seriously, you are  _ freezing _ . Maybe warm up first? And change out of, like, these clothes? Into PJs? Then we can, uh, regroup?”

“Re _ group _ ?” Regina says with a snort, but moves away. 

“Yeah,” she replies. “Regroup. Let’s say, like ten minutes, and I can come find you in your study and we can sip wine in armchairs in front of the fireplace and talk super intellectually and maybe make out.”

Regina ignores the majority of this visual and ends up zeroing in on the final part of Emma’s statement. “ _ Maybe _ make out?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, tucking her arms behind her back awkwardly and shrugging, somehow managing to do both at the same time. “I mean, if you want.”

Regina snorts again. “I think it’s quite obvious that I  _ do _ want.” 

“Okay,” Emma says. “Okay, cool.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.” Instead of moving, Emma just stares at her, and Regina stares back, both of them standing there in the dark of the hallway.

“Emma?” 

“Yeah. Sorry. Just -” Emma cuts herself off abruptly. “I was gonna say something really sappy then but like, that’s totally weird, so I totally won’t, so I’m just gonna…”

“Hey,” Regina says, catching her hand as she turns and moves away before she can stage a full escape. “Now you have to say it.”

“I really don’t,” Emma replies. Even in the dark, Regina can make out the soft pink her cheeks are turning.

“Yes, you do.”

“Regina…”

“Come on. Is it that bad?”

“No, I just…” Emma halts, huffs, pulls her hand away. “I just - it doesn’t feel real, okay? I’ve been kind of crushing on you since I first showed up here, so…”

“You have?” Regina says, trying to keep her voice neutral but failing and ending up sounding far too pleased with herself instead. 

“Oh my  _ God _ ,” Emma lets out, covering her face with her hands and backing away, sounding exactly like Ruby. “Yes, okay? Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Regina says, but now she’s the one who’s grinning. 

“You didn’t have to! I’m going now. And I can never, ever look you in the eye  _ again _ …”

“Hey, no.” Regina catches up with her, barring her exit from the room. “Regroup in ten minutes, remember?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, still not making eye contact. 

Regina sighs, then grasps Emma’s chin firmly and pulls her into a hard kiss, if one that only lasts a few seconds. “Stop being embarrassed,” she says when she pulls away. “For one thing, eye contact is going to be pretty necessary if you want to -”

“Shut up,” Emma mumbles, though she’s smiling. “Has anyone told you you’re kind of an asshole?”

“Few people to my face, so your courage is to be commended.”

“Well, good you have me around, huh?”

“I’m going to change,” Regina says, turning away. “You now have nine minutes.”

“No fair!” Emma replies, but she follows her up the stairs. After a length of time that’s possibly longer than ten minutes, they end up in Regina’s study, though not really sitting in armchairs or sipping glasses of wine. Instead, Emma lies on her side on the couch, and after only some hesitation at whether she should initiate the contact, Regina moves to wrap herself around her, arm around her waist and one leg tangled between hers. 

Emma grumbles briefly about the way Regina’s flannel pyjama bottoms are itchy against her legs, then Regina retorts that maybe she shouldn’t be bare-legged in the first place, especially in such freezing weather, and Emma retorts with a grin that she has to keep Regina interested somehow. Regina’s reply comes in the form of showing Emma just how interested she is, which is a lot.

“You’re good at that,” Emma says afterwards, chest heaving from exertion.

“What?” Regina asks, lying on her stomach next to her and slipping her fingers under Emma’s shirt to trace against the soft skin of her stomach. “Making out on a couch like a teenager?”

“Yeah,” Emma confirms with a breathless laugh, squirming a little when Regina noses at the juncture between her neck and her collarbone. “Kinda wanna do it forever.”

“Hmm,” Regina lets out in agreement, dropping a kiss to Emma’s shoulder, then smirking. “Just wait till we get to third base.”

“Mm, you have to take me out on a date first. Two dates. Three dates? How many dates should it be until we have sex?”

“Are we going for the bare minimum here?” Regina inquires with amusement.

“Oh, absolutely,” Emma agrees. “But definitely keeping that minimum in place. I want to be courted and wooed, Captain Mills.”

The words are light, but Regina can hear the vulnerability behind them, can hear the quiet, pleading _let’s give this a shot_ running beneath them. She rises up on her elbow to crane over Emma and kiss her slowly, thoroughly enough that she feels the sincerity behind the action.

“Okay,” she says after finally pulling away, staying close enough that their noses are still brushing. “I think I can manage that.”

“Hmm…” Emma moves to kiss her once more, then lets Regina move back to lying next to her, their sides pressed close together. “Maybe we should wait a bit till we tell the kids. It kinda looks like I just couldn’t help jumping you as soon as you were a free woman.”

“Isn’t that the truth, though?” Regina replies with a cocky smile. Emma stares at her, then shoves at her shoulder.

“Shut up,” she says.

“Or what?” Regina replies.

They don’t talk for a while after that.

 

“So you guys are a thing now?”

Regina watches as Emma chokes on her morning coffee. Henry is leaning against the kitchen counter close beside them and watching them with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.

“Jesus, kid,” she lets out with a cough. “Give a girl some warning, will ya?”

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “Are you together now?”

Regina glances briefly at Emma, who is suddenly looking at her coffee as though it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “That’s between Emma and I, Henry.”

“So yes,” he says.

“So it’s none of your business,” Regina retorts sharply. “Go clean your room.”

“ _Mom_ -”

“Henry, I asked you to clean your room two nights ago and have let it slide since then but will have no son of mine living in a garbage tip. Room. _Now_.”

Henry grumbles but exits the room promptly. Emma sips at her coffee and eyes Regina with a smile on her face.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing,” Emma says. “Just you.”

It’s bold and brazen and Regina almost wants her to take it back. But Emma is just drinking her coffee like she knows something Regina doesn’t, like she’s seeing something Regina can’t, and the quiet panic gets quieter.

“You’re ridiculous,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah,” Emma says with a grin. Regina shoves her, but keeps her hand on her arm and ends up pulling her in for a kiss instead.

“Gross,” a voice comments. Emma and Regina spring apart to see Elsa coming into the kitchen and opening up a cupboard.

“Uh, hey Elsa,” Emma says awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Hey,” Elsa says. “Please don’t try to say anything. We can pretend that I was never even here.”

Regina frowns. “Elsa -”

She’s cut off by Emma squeezing her arm. “Maybe we should listen to her this time,” she suggests in a murmur.

Evidently it’s not quite quiet enough for Elsa not to hear, because she turns with a pack of cookies in her hands, rolls her eyes and says: “Yeah, please do. You guys are cool or whatever but I don’t really need to know about it.”

“You hear that, Regina?” Emma exclaims with mock surprise. “The teen says we’re cool! Now it _must_ be true!”

“You know by ‘cool’ I meant…” Elsa starts, before seeing the goofy grin on Emma’s face and rolling her eyes, though Regina can catch the beginnings of a smile on her face too. “Whatever. I’m going now. You’re weird.”

“Love you too,” Emma replies, smiling wider, and this time Elsa returns it, a flush to her cheeks. “In fact, I love you _so_ much that I’ll keep from telling you _all_ about how your mom and I -”

“ _No_!” Elsa lets out in horror, making a beeline for the exit as she claps her hands over her ears. “Do _not_ -”

Emma laughs so hard she ends up doubling over, half leaning against her. Regina feels the warm weight of her, hears her clear laughter and sees the crisp morning from the kitchen windows, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hashtag captain swan. get it trending. the last chapter is just an epilogue and you'll be pleased to know it's not nearly as long as the rest of this fic has been.  
> chapter title taken from the very underrated reprise of 'sixteen going on seventeen'.


	6. i know i will hear what i've heard before

**PART VI: I KNOW I WILL HEAR WHAT I’VE HEARD BEFORE**

Regina bolts upright in bed, gasping for air.

“Regina?” comes a voice from beside her, rough with sleep. It’s Emma, who puts a hand to the small of her back. “Regina? Are you with me?”

The room is dark already but just seems to get darker, blackness eating away at Regina’s vision until all she’s aware of is her breathing and Emma’s voice, somewhere distant. In her head she’s smelling blood and rust and screaming for someone to help, in her head Marian and Robin are dying and her hands are covered in blood and she thinks it will never end.

“Regina,” Emma’s voice pierces through the haze. “Regina. Come on. Count with me. We’re gonna start at one hundred and go back, okay?”

Regina wants to say _okay_ , but all that comes out is a pained noise, and she feels Emma grab her hand and place it on her stomach. “Your hand is on my stomach and you can feel my breathing, yeah? We’re gonna breathe the same, okay? Cool. I’m starting at one hundred. One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight…”

They get to seventy-four before Regina says hoarsely: “I’m okay.”

Emma is silent for a moment, before replying: “I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

Emma sighs, wraps an arm around Regina’s waist and tugging her closer, their legs brushing under the comforter. “You shouldn’t be.”

“Woke you up,” Regina mumbles, wanting to initiate contact but feeling a coldness deep in her bones that keeps her from moving.

“Doesn’t matter,” Emma says. Neither of them are particular morning people and their conversations are usually this monosyllabic. Emma yawns.

“Go back to sleep,” Regina says.

“Okay,” Emma replies easily, blinking sleepily. “You too?”

“In a moment.”

Emma falls back against the mattress, eyes fluttering shut, and it takes barely a few minutes for her breathing to ease into the steady pattern of sleep. Regina watches her for a while, lets her eyes trace down the slope of her nose and curve of her lips. Then she sighs and lies back down, closing her eyes and hoping for sleep. It’s difficult at first, voices crowding her head with things she doesn't want to hear, and she thinks the rest of the night will probably be spent listening to them, but Emma shifts in her sleep, throws an arm and a leg across her body with a quiet murmur, and they soften slightly, moving to simmer at the edge of her consciousness. Regina manages to drift off into a doze-like state between sleep and wake, and she’s only jolted out of it by a loud voice; it takes her a few minutes to realise that it’s not from inside her own head.

“Sunday! It’s Sunday! Mama! Emma!”

She sits up slightly after hearing this loud declaration, which is accompanied by loud knocking on her door. Beside her, Emma groans.

“Why does Roland always state the obvious,” she mumbles into her pillow.

More knocking. “Sunday!”

“Because he’s five, Emma,” Regina replies, getting up to open the door and pulling on her dressing gown as she does so. Emma mutters something about that being no excuse and pulls the comforter over her head.

“Mama!” Roland cries once Regina opens the door. He’s in his pyjamas, with his own comforter draped over his shoulders. “It’s Sunday! Bed party!”

“Alright, then,” Regina says with a smile, scooping him up into her arms and pressing a kiss into his cheek that’s sloppy enough to make him squeal. By the time they’ve moved the short distance to the bed, Emma is upright and awake, still blinking away the sleep from her eyes but smiling widely at Roland.

“Morning, bud,” she says, voice hoarse from disuse. “Bed party, huh?”

“Yeah!” Roland declares, bouncing up and down slightly on the bed as he does so.

“Where are your partners in crime?” Emma asks, pulling him into a hug.

“Coming!” Roland squirms away to tell her. “They’re getting the -” The rest of Roland’s sentence is lost in the loud arrival of his siblings, who aren’t quite as courteous as he was and don’t bother knocking before coming in.

“Bed party!” Henry exclaims in unison with Belle and Anna, each bearing a pillow. Behind them are Ruby, Elsa and Mulan, arms full of comforters, grinning. From beside Regina, Emma laughs.

“So you all came prepared, huh? Well, this bed is kinda full already…”

“Favouritism!” Ruby cries in mock outrage from the back of the group. “Men, this will not stand! Attack!”

Regina has barely a moment to react before the children all let out a yell that sounds terrifyingly like a battle cry and leap onto the bed in a heap with amidst breathless laughter. She winces at the elbow into the chest that she gets as a result, squished almost entirely by Anna and Belle’s combined body weight. But she can feel the vibrations of Emma’s laughter beside her and see the grins on Ruby and Henry’s faces as they whack one another mercilessly with pillows, and she can’t help but let out a laugh of her own, barely audible over the children’s variety of loud noises, but enough to exhilarate her anyway.

Emma is beside her, their sides pressed entirely together, and in a brief moment of all the children occupying themselves with either pillow fights or burrowing themselves under the covers as part of a game (pretending to be in Roland’s Enchanted Forest, again), she turns and smiles at her, eyes so bright that Regina feels her breath catch in her throat.

“Hi,” Emma says. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Regina murmurs, still caught off-guard by Emma’s wide, bright eyes, her all-consuming, addictive presence. It’s been months, now - they’ve even been sleeping in the same bed for a while now - and there’s still a moment where Regina thinks with a vague terror -  _what is she doing here? What is this beautiful woman doing here?_

“Hey,” Emma says, bringing a hand up to brush against Regina’s cheek. The contact is warm and Regina closes her eyes briefly against it. “Y’okay?”

“Yes,” Regina says after a moment. Emma eyes her, unconvinced.

“Even after last night?” she asks in a lowered voice. 

The dark, the screaming, the breathing heavily and hard, Emma counting backwards from one hundred into the quiet of the room. Regina breathes in now, watches Roland screech with delight as Elsa blows kisses onto his stomach. Ruby is eyeing her with concern; she smiles to assure her before turning back to Emma.

“Yes,” she says quietly, then adds: “I’m sorry.”

“Sweetheart,” Emma says, smiling crookedly. Regina’s heart pounds at the endearment that so rarely falls out of her mouth; she’s usually the one who uses it, and even then not often. “You’re here. That’s what matters.”

Times like this, Regina becomes so hyper-aware of her heart that she thinks it might just burst out of her chest. Since they first met, she's always felt so much of everything with Emma, and so strongly - frustration and anger that turned into lust then into fondness then into something closer to adoration - that sometimes she wonders how it took her so long to notice it in the first place. It stops up her throat now, leavers her wordless. Emma is still smiling, only slightly, but enough to warm her bones.

“You are so beautiful,” Regina blurts out, feeling slightly overwhelmed. It’s not what she wants to say at all, not even close, but Emma blinks, her smile morphing and sharpening out into a wide, delighted grin.

“You think so?” she says, voice soft and teasing, lilting across the words, and she uses her grip on Regina to pull her closer. “Because I think that you’re just a real good sweet talker, Captain Mills.”

“You’re right, I am,” Regina says in a murmur. “I always follow through, though.”

“Mm. You say all the right things,” Emma says.

“It’s a gift,” Regina replies, and still hearing the noises of the children distracted around them, she leans in to kiss her, chaste but slow and delicate nonetheless.

“Ew!” Roland says. “Stop kissing! It ruins the party!”

The two of them break apart immediately. Regina is mute from vague embarrassment but can’t help smiling a little; Emma is has turned a faint shade of pink, but grins anyway.

“I dunno, kid, I think it _starts_ the party,” she tells him, waggling her eyebrows. Regina elbows her hard. “Ow! Regina!”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Elsa says in response to Emma’s previous statement. “ _No_. Do _not_ say that ever again.”

“C’mon,” Emma says, spreading her arms wide in an imploring fashion. “You all love me.”

“Love can be taken away,” Ruby says darkly. But none of them actually disagree with Emma's statement, and Henry softens the blow by darting forward to press a kiss to Emma’s cheek. Regina watches her smile at them and smiles herself, moving until she's sitting directly behind Emma with her back to her front, places her arms around her waist and her chin just over her shoulder. She listens to her family's random, silly conversations and playful arguments, feels Emma vibrate with laughter against her, and breathes in again, just a little.  _You're here_ , she thinks.  _That's what matters._

 

“Hey,” comes a voice from the doorway of the living room. Regina looks up to see Mulan standing there, book in hand. “Can I read in here?”

She blinks in surprise and smiles. All of them have fit into the typically slow Sunday rhythm of the vague paralysis that comes before dinner, Ruby out with Dorothy (she’d told Regina that she was ‘working on a project’ with a friend, as though she was born yesterday) and both Roland and Anna on playdates. Henry and Elsa are occupying themselves for the time being (in relative peace, after Regina had to mediate an argument between them that apparently broke out over some coloured pens and/or Mario Kart), and Belle is employing Emma’s help with a timeline of all the presidents since Washington upstairs, but the two of have been working on it so long that Regina suspects a large amount of procrastination is involved.

“Of course,” she says, clicking off the television that's been murmuring in the background as she finishes off some work in time for tomorrow. Mulan is just at the age where books are beginning to lose their charm in comparison to Netflix and Facebook, and even without that conflict she’s always been far more interested in more active pursuits, but lately her and Emma have been racing through _The Book Thief_ (the two of them always seem to have to make a competition out of everything they do together).

“Sit with me,” Regina says, shifting on the couch she’s on to make space for her. “How’s it coming?”

“Good,” Mulan says, sitting down. “Feel like something bad’s gonna happen, though.”

“Hmm,” Regina hums noncommittally. Mulan’s eyes narrow immediately.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly.

“Mom…”

“Nothing!” she repeats more insistently. “I didn’t say anything.” Mulan makes a growling noise of irritation and looks unconvinced, but opens her book without saying anything more. Regina grins to herself and returns to the forms that she was looking at before. She doesn’t know how long they spend in a comfortable silence before Mulan clears her throat.

“So you saw Archie today,” she says, a little awkwardly.

 _Ah_ , Regina thinks. “I did think it seemed suspicious that you were so keen to come and sit with me for no apparent reason,” she says with amusement.

“Hey,” Mulan says, frowning. “I did - it wasn’t like I _didn’t_ want to.”

“But you _were_ trying to segue into some prying.”

“It’s not _prying_ ,” she replies, before stopping and looking a little uncomfortable. “Is it?” she adds.

“No,” Regina murmurs, then smiles. “Just bad snooping.” Mulan lets out an exhale that could be a laugh, and Regina lifts up her arm, indicating that she should tuck in underneath it, then sighs.

“I did see Archie today,” she says a little archly, but squeezing Mulan with her arm to make up for it. “As I have been doing for the past several months.” 

“Yeah,” Mulan mumbles. “I was just - you know.”

Regina snorts. “Do I know?”

“ _Mom_ ,” Mulan says, poking her in the side. “Stop.”

“Sorry,” she says, moving to press a kiss to Mulan’s temple. “I’ll stop. Yes, I did see Archie today.”

“Was it okay?”

“As okay as it’ll ever be,” she says with a sigh. When Mulan’s face creases back into a frown, she adds: “It’s fine, darling.”

“I want it to be working,” she says.

“Me too,” Regina replies. “It’s not that easy, though. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Mulan says, sounding suddenly far older than her years. “Yeah, I know.”

Regina purses her lips, unsure of how to proceed. She thinks of last night, how she woke up gasping and screaming in bed and Emma seemed so accustomed to it that she’d forgotten by morning. She feels like a broken record. The months have been stretching by - half a year, now - and just as she thinks she’s getting better her mind decides to tell her otherwise. 

“I’m sorry,” she says at last, voice quiet but feeling incredibly loud in the room anyway.

“No, Mom -”

“I’m trying. I am.”

“I know that.” Mulan takes her hand. “It’s just going to take some time.”

“Maybe forever.”

“As long as it takes.” She pauses. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re better than you were before. Even if it’s by only a little.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Mulan says, nodding at their interlocked fingers. “You’re better at that. Contact. You don’t overthink it as much.”

Regina manages a smile. “I don’t want to overthink it,” she says. She doesn’t. She wants the fear and the hesitation to go away every time she feels an instinct to take her children into her arms. She wants to kiss Emma without hearing a voice that tells her that it’s bound to go wrong.“I love you.”

Mulan arches up to kiss her cheek. “I love you too.”

Regina smiles, extracts her arm from around her and moves back towards her papers. “I should probably finish these. They’re awful.”

Her daughter glances at the aforementioned papers and wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. Gross. I never got why you do that. It seems so boring.”

She shrugs, because technically, corporate fundraising _is_ boring. “Someone has to do the boring things,” she replies. “Besides, I think the rest of my life has been filled with enough excitement to make up for some boredom now and then.”

“Yeah,” Mulan says, face twisting up into something like sympathy. “Mom…”

“Let’s not talk about it any more,” Regina murmurs, reaching out a hand to squeeze her shoulder.  “It’s okay.” Mulan pauses.

“Okay,” she says, offering her a small smile. And Regina thinks, briefly, that it might be.

 

“Hey,” Emma says, poking her head around the study door and knocking on it at the same time (a habit which Regina has said many times entirely defeats the point of knocking). “Just to say I’m going now.”

“Already?” Regina says with a frown, glancing at the clock.

“Yeah,” Emma replies as she does so, stepping inside the room as she does so. “My shift starts in fifteen minutes.”

“Your collar isn’t done properly,” Regina says, observing Emma’s uniform, and after a few moments of watching her try in vain to fix it herself, she moves towards her and bats her hands away to do it herself. “How’s the new job going?” she asks in a murmur as she does so, resting her hands on Emma’s shoulders once the job is done.

“Not bad,” Emma says with an easy smile. “Kinda weird. Also I hate the night shifts. But Deputy Sheriff Swan sounds pretty cool, huh?”

Regina rolls her eyes. “If you’re just in it for the title -”

“Hey, I might be,” she replies, pulling Regina closer. “I like titles. Deputy Sheriff Swan, Miss Swan...Captain Mills…”

Regina drops her hands, running them down Emma’s arms. She reaches Emma’s hands resting on hips and lifts them off just as Emma leans in for a kiss, dodging her and letting it land on her cheek instead.

“That isn’t the behaviour of someone who needs to leave for work so soon,” Regina murmurs, pressing her cheek against Emma’s and smiling at her responding shiver. “Is it, Deputy Swan?”

Emma groans. “ _Regina_.”

She pulls away and snorts. “Go.” When Emma doesn’t move, she adds: “I’ll still be here when you get back, you know.”

The words have such a quiet promise to them that Emma blinks in surprise, before her expression evens out into one of such affection that Regina can’t resist reaching for her, cupping her cheeks and kissing her, slowly, deepening it languidly enough that within only a few seconds Emma is making the kind of sounds that definitely aren’t ones she should be making if she wants Regina to let her go to work on time. When they pull apart she smiles, widely.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me,” she says.

Regina rolls her eyes but can’t find it in her to deny it, mostly because it’s true. Everything about her and Emma is backwards and upside down; they share children and they lived together before even liking anything about each other, and Regina is a veteran and Emma used to be a thief and then a _nun_ and now she works for small town law enforcement. And Regina can be volatile and Emma can be cold and they both can push each other away when all they want is to pull each other closer. Regina knows on paper that they don’t make sense and she knows it enough that it still has the power to scare her. But Emma’s right. She can’t resist her.

“Go to work,” Regina says, working hard to keep her smile from showing on her face, but Emma catches it and laughs, leaning in for another quick kiss.

“Alright,” she says, grinning widely as she leaves. “Don’t stay up for me, darling.”

“I won’t, honey,” Regina retorts.

“You make it sound like that's a given, baby. I know you'll be counting down the hours until I come home.” 

_ Home _ . Sometimes the word sounds odd in Emma’s voice, comes out all wrong like she doesn’t know how to pronounce the syllable properly. Only a week after they’d first gotten together, both had decided it was probably for the best if Emma moved out and got a different job, in an attempt at trying an actually normal relationship, with the latter happening and Emma eventually finding a job as deputy sheriff, but the former not quite so easily. Emma has an apartment across town and a roommate, Jasmine, who is by all accounts rather lovely but seems to spend more time staying with her boyfriend than the actual apartment, something Emma likes to mock her for before Regina reminds her that she’s in almost exactly the same situation. Regina is reasonably sure that there’s more of Emma’s stuff here in the mansion than in her apartment, and all attempts at having Emma sleeping in the guest room were eventually abandoned a couple of months ago, too. But, they both insist, they’re taking it slow. Reasonably slow, anyway. 

“On the contrary, pumpkin,” Regina says, watching Emma leave. “The only peace and quiet I get around here is when you’re gone.”

 

At this, Emma pokes her head back around the door. She takes two steps into the room and pulls Regina in by her belt-loops, pressing their noses together with a slow smirk. “You _sure_ , honeybun?”

“I’m positive, sugar,” Regina just manages to say before Emma captures her lips in yet another kiss, even deeper and more thorough than before. She can't even think past Emma's mouth on hers, brain stuck on the sensation, only vaguely aware of Emma's hands slipping into her hair and pulling her even closer. Regina's hands are just creeping downwards past Emma's waist when Emma herself pulls away and places her hands on top of them, pulling them back. 

“That isn’t the behaviour of someone who needs to let the Deputy Sheriff get to work on time, is it, Captain Mills?” she says softly, eyes gleaming.

Regina doesn't answer for a moment, still trying to get her breath under control. When she does, all she can do is say, still a little breathlessly: “God, you are such an asshole.”

Emma laughs, backing away to the door and starting to leave. “You’re into that, though.”

A little too into it, Regina thinks, eyeing Emma ruefully. Part of her is still tempted to drag her back inside and say to hell with the Deputy Sheriff’s night shift, which she knows is thoroughly irresponsible, but that's something that seems to just be a side-effect of Emma's presence. “Maybe,” is all she says aloud, but Emma arches an eyebrow like she knows what Regina means anyway.

“Maybe?”

She rolls her eyes. “Go to work, Emma.”

“Okay, okay, I'm going, I'm really going. Don't miss me too much.” She departs, but from the hallway, adds: “You know no other lovers warm your bed like I do, dearest.”

“I would really beg to d -”

“Mom! Emma!” Ruby calls from somewhere upstairs. “Can you stop being weird, please? Or if you’re being weird, can you do it quieter, I’m on Skype to Aunt Zelena.”

“Yeah, Regina,” Emma says from just outside the study door. “Stop being weird.”

“I am _not_ the weird one in this family!” Regina calls back with annoyance, but she’s smiling, and the word _family_ feels at once soft and strong to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it, well done for making it, because i don't know why i was ever possessed to write over 60k of a sound of music au. huge thank you to all my pals on twitter who put up with me tweeting incessantly about this fic (no really, incessantly) and of those, particularly the wonderful geniuses who put together sqsupernova (because it has been so much fun).  
> thank you to evie for not only being my wonderful artist but also being a friend and talented cheerleader, and lauren for doing the same, as well as putting up with my multiple breakdowns about length, characterisation and lack thereof, etc.  
> biggest thank you of all to zohra - you are not only my beta and right hand woman, but half of this fic. without you it wouldn't even exist. my gratitude is entirely inexpressible.  
> if you liked it, drop me a comment. if you think i'm cool (you probably don't) or even if you think i'm a loser, i do loser-like things on twitter, @finitively.  
> chapter title is taken from 'the sound of music', because why wouldn't it be, really.


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